by A. J. Aalto
Gillian smiled gratefully, and Evelyn thought she should try it more often; it made her face far more interesting and her eyes, fern green with a sharp outline, brighten and come alive.
Frankie returned with a steaming cup of green tea and her step slowed; she stared off into the distance, her color draining.
“Ms. Farmer?” the lawyer said, looking over his shoulder. “Is there anything…?”
Frankie shook her head, looking troubled but setting the tea in front of her sister. Evelyn looked around, too, but didn’t see anything but a few customers coming out of the deli across the street and an older gentleman with a leashed Yorkshire terrier on the walking path by the river. Wind tossed red and yellow leaves from the trees. A dry leaf skittered across the cobblestones near the younger sister’s bicycle.
Gillian handed Frankie a pen and took her tea without noticing the worry.
“You sign here beside me,” Gillian told her, and pointed at the second flagged line.
Frankie said, “Gillian, are you sure this is…”
“Life’s short,” Gillian said with a forced smile that seemed to convey a private message between them. “Live a little.”
Chapter Three
Saturday, October 25. 10:00 A.M.
Seagulls spun in lazy circles above the glittering water of the Welland Canal at Lock Six, screeching overhead in the wake of a passing ship as Constable Dean Jagger strolled through the small parking lot toward the food truck. Stones crunched under his boots and he kept his step light and casual, admiring the covered picnic area and the whitewashed lattice wrapped tidily around the trash bins to hide them. The smells of deep fryer grease and rotisserie hot dogs belched from a nearby food truck’s exhaust vents. One of the back doors was propped open, and there was a fat bald man in a stained white apron smoking a cigarette on the cinder block that served as a step from the truck to the ground.
In the order window, a woman with a heavy bosom and long, kinked blonde hair leaned on the high counter; being fairly tall, the counter came up to Jagger's chin, but he could imagine his kids craning their heads back to look at the lady. She greeted him warmly, and her smile made a plain face somewhat pretty; good skin and excellent teeth made up for a teased, crimped eighties hairdo. He ordered a large basket of fries and a diet Coke, and while she set the fries to cook, he took his can of pop to the closest picnic table and sat facing the truck, swinging his attention between her and the blue, rippling canal. A boat had recently gone through, and the gulls swooped excitedly at the churned up water behind the propellers.
“Busy?” he asked.
The lady squinted up at the sunny sky. “Nah, not this late in the season. Only people besides you today were a regular who likes hot Italian sausages with sauerkraut, and my grandson. He drives in for a hot dog and onion rings on Saturdays on his lunch break.” She looked at him expectantly.
He scoffed with a gracious frown, “You’re not old enough for grandkids that can drive.”
She waved her hand at him in a go-on-you-scamp motion and smiled again, pleased.
“Get a lot of regulars from the parks department?” He nodded his head toward the park and the public cemetery property behind it, which blended into a protected green space a little further in – a swath of trees and local wildflowers planted and maintained by the city, with support from a private conservation fund.
“Once in a while,” she answered, “but mostly I get folks from the canal, workers on break or at the end of their shift. Or people stopping on their way to the big outlet mall.”
“Sailors ever get off the boats?” he asked.
She shrugged. “If their ship is tied up long enough.”
“If I showed you a picture or two,” he said, “think you could say if you’d seen someone?”
Her gaze sharpened beneath the light blue eye shadow on her lids. “Maybe. If you showed me a badge.”
He did. Then he brought out the pictures, starting with his missing person, Mike Deacon: thirty-four years old, Caucasian, five-nine, one-eighty, brown eyes, dark brown hair. The blank look on her face told him “no” before she said it. Then he showed her a picture of sisters, one blonde and one brunette, smiling side-by-each with the sun in their hair. She stared at it for a long time without speaking, but he could see she wasn’t trying to place the faces; she’d already fixated on the brunette and was carefully choosing her next words.
He used his protective voice accordingly. “Everything okay?”
“See your badge again?” she asked.
He showed her, and gave her one of his cards, which she promptly squirreled away. He had no doubt she’d be calling to verify his badge number.
“Another guy asked about her.” She pointed at the brunette. “Different picture, though. One on his phone. Small. He had to do like this.” She moved her fingers apart to indicate zooming in on a picture in a smartphone. “I didn’t feel right about him.”
“He wasn’t a cop,” he guessed. “Did he say he was?”
“Implied it. He wasn’t up to no good, whoever he was.” She tapped the picture. “She’s real quiet. Works close to here. Drives a Jeep, an older one. Not especially friendly, but that don’t mean she’s trouble. Always has dirt under her nails, not filth but good clean soil, if you catch my meaning. Works hard for her money. Likes to get her hands dirty.”
“No fancy gloves for her,” he said, picking up on her train of thought. “A farmer from across the canal, maybe?”
“Or something. Nice Tilley hat most days, but sometimes a faded old baseball hat. Big for her. A boyfriend’s hat, I got the impression.”
He asked, “No name for her?”
She shook her head. “Doubt she’d give it to me if I asked. Quiet,” she repeated. “Skittish, like.” She turned to bellow, “Dave, fries!” then thumped the picture, this time with a thick forefinger, her fingernail painted with gold glitter. “I didn’t think she’d like that guy knowing anything about her.” She shook her head and her kinked hair barely moved. “No. Fuck that guy.”
“Mind describing him for me?”
“Skinny. Five-ten. White hick. Dark hair. Couple day’s stubble. Coors Light t-shirt, jeans. Dark eyes, I think. Drove a big black crew cab, loud as hell. Shiny. Big ol’ wheels like he’s out to prove he’s Mr. Bigshot. Chrome out the ass. Back in my day, a big truck like that meant a tiny pecker.”
“What did he ask about her?” Dean asked.
“If I’d seen her a lot. I told him she didn’t look familiar,” she said, and sucked her teeth before repeating, “because fuck that guy.”
“Have you mentioned to this woman that the man was asking about her?”
“Haven’t seen her yet since it happened, but my gut tells me it’s the kind of information a girl should have, even if she won’t like to hear it.” She studied him a minute. “Think I should?”
The bald smoker handed forward a heaping cardboard box of steaming fries, glistening with grease, and Dean’s mouth watered. “Always listen to your gut,” he advised.
She gave him extra salt and ketchup packets and another diet Coke on the house. “And what about you? Should I tell her about you?”
Dean smiled. “Always listen to your gut,” he said again. He took his fries to his car to eat in silence and collect his thoughts.
**
Paul Langerbeins sat in his silver Audi, eating the last of his hot Italian sausage with sauerkraut, and watched the plain clothes police officer walk back to his personally owned vehicle, a black SUV; he recognized the walk, the routine with the pictures, the feigned indifference when an investigator hit solid on a lead.
“What are you working on, you busy bee?” he wondered aloud, his interest piqued. He was about to snap a picture when his phone rang in his hand; blocked number. He answered with a curt, “Yes.”
“Where is she?” A low growl, altered using voice manipulation. “Where. The fuck. Is she?”
Paul wet his mouth with a sip of ginger ale and paused long enou
gh to hear the breathing on the end of the phone become ragged and stressed. Only then did he reply. “Who is this?”
“Where are you hiding that slut, that fucking whore?” The man on the other end of the line was so angry that he sounded like he was choking on his words.
Paul, who was hiding no one, wondered if his most recent client had decided to take his advice and go stay at a friend’s house or a motel for a few nights until things with an ex cooled off.
“Nice voice. You’re the one hiding things. How did you get this number?” Paul asked.
“I can get anything, you crippled fuck.”
He’s seen me walk, Paul noted, and then, wryly, Or try to walk. Okay. So he’s been outside Frankie’s place when I’ve come or gone. Where is he now? With half his focus, Paul continued to watch the unfamiliar officer in his SUV, munching fries, and making notes.
“Keep harassing me, son,” Paul said, “see what happens.”
“Keep fucking my girl, see what happens,” the caller spat.
Fishing for info. Paul could have confirmed or denied, but said, “You don’t scare me at all.”
“Gonna try to have me arrested like a little bitch?” The mechanical-sounding voice was a grating rasp. “Pussy.”
Paul put on his sweetest, most condescending tone. “Have a marvelous day, kid,” before coolly hanging up, and then switched his phone to vibrate for a while, putting it on the car charger and turning the car on. Immediately, the texts started shaking the phone, one after another, a furious barrage. He drove slowly through the parking area, slowed by a trash bin, threw out his lunch garbage and a couple of empty coffee cups, and set off down the canal road heading south, toward home.
**
Constable Dean Jagger jotted down the license plate of the man in the silver Audi, the date and time, and a brief description.
Chapter Four
Saturday, October 25. 10:00 A.M.
“Heads up, Gills.”
Gillian’s right hand was up before she saw the water bottle, snatching it out of the air. The impact gave her bad shoulder a twinge that she knew would cause her trouble later, but for now, she would ignore it. The air was warm and damp in the greenhouse and smelled thickly of loam and peat. She used the cool condensation on the plastic bottle to wet her brow, willing away any remnants of last night’s disrupted sleep, nodding a thank-you at Bruce Wertheimer. Rearranging the landscaping tools onto the back of the ATV trailer, she kept him in her peripheral vision. A big man, broad through the shoulders, thick in the middle, long-legged and impressively strong, Bruce kept a handsome face hidden beneath a heavy but well-kept beard.
They’d have three hours before the noisy riding mowers and leaf blowers started up in the cemetery. End of the season clean-up was always noisier than early spring plantings. Someone had brought out the CAT Multi-Terrain Loader and hadn't parked it properly, leaving it beside the greenhouse overnight, the keys still inside. Stupid, Gillian thought, or lazy.
Other than the loader being left out, the morning was typical for mid-October; chilly, damp, but so far free of frost at daybreak. But for Gillian, something felt different, a subtle shift that she couldn’t quite peg down. Chalking it up to lingering effects of restless sleep, she tugged her Tilley hat so that the brim would shade her eyes when she got in the sun outside.
“Gillian,” Bruce called, jerking his head to the side at the back office. “Phone‘s ringing.”
She smiled and waved that it was fine. She never answered her cell phone while she was working, and everyone knew to leave a message. Most likely, it was Frankie, up early with an idea for an art project for their new home, wanting to ask a question about colors and mood, or to vent about her most recent break-up, or solidifying plans for their “sisters only” dinner date later.
They had started calling it “sisters only” after a disastrous fish and chips meal the previous month. Frankie’s sons were with their father, her ex-husband Henry Farmer, for the weekend, and she had invited Gillian over for a Friday night movie and dinner; Gillian had picked up two dinners from a local fish shop, but when she showed up at her sister’s house, she was disappointed to see Frankie’s boyfriend Travis’s black truck parked in the driveway behind the red Fiat. Frankie tried to give him polite hints that they were having a girl’s night. He’d grilled them about what they were planning, as if they were going to snort a bunch of cocaine and rob a bank or something; his attitude had been so surprising that Gillian had laughed out loud and rolled her eyes, made a crack about male strippers, and went into the kitchen to dish out the two dinners onto two plates, pouring two cups of Pepsi.
Irritated that Travis was trying to dictate their activities for the night, and frustrated that it wasn’t her place to kick him out, Gillian had bitten her tongue after that. The sisters had put on a movie as they’d planned to. Travis sat brooding and mute while they ate; the discomfort in the room had grown as the silence stretched interminably. It struck her as completely out of character for Frankie to not speak her mind. There had been an ugly undercurrent that Gillian hadn’t seen before.
That evening, she and her sister had eaten not just dinner but also ice cream in front of him, the silence increasingly uncomfortable, feeling monitored, intimidated, punished for daring to want girl time alone together. And while Gillian’s sense of propriety had nagged her to offer him some of her dinner, she’d dug her heels in and refused to give in and do so; she couldn't reward bad behavior or encourage him to stay longer. This was her night, not his, and she wasn’t in the mood to share. After going outside for a cigarette, Travis had eventually driven away, and Gillian remembered feeling like she could breathe again. Gillian wanted to ask her sister then why the hell she wouldn’t put her foot down and tell him to get lost, but Frankie had been in a funny mood after he left, and Gillian had let it go. They’d put on a movie, choosing Sleeping With The Enemy; the mood had become increasingly awkward until the only solution had been turning the movie off halfway through and switching to Breakfast Club, an old favorite of Frankie’s.
Their next girl’s night was called “sisters only,” and if Travis had given Frankie grief about it or had gotten the hint, Gillian didn’t know. By then, though, Travis Freeman was on the way out of Frankie’s life. He just didn’t know it yet.
“Phone hasn’t stopped,” Bruce advised her from the other end of the greenhouse.
The new guy, Aaron, piped up, “Someone’s phone!”
In case it was something regarding the real estate deal, Gillian removed her gardening gloves and whistled to the driver of the ATV to wait for a second while she jogged to the back office, opened her locker, and looked at her phone.
Three missed calls. Two from a blocked phone number, and one from an old friend she hadn’t heard from in a long time. Three years, four months, and four days to be exact, her conscience piped up, always terribly aware of the date. What does she want? The thought of reconnecting with Bobby McIntyre lit a fire of anxiety in Gillian’s veins that stalled her hand. Bobby had never been a stable member of their social group; a whirlwind of drama and paranoia and flat-out fabrications, Bobby drained the energy out of the bubbliest friends and set the unhappier ones on a downward spiral. It happened every time.
But that’s not the only reason you’re avoiding her, the dark part of her mind nagged. What does she want? Can you afford to ignore her?
There were two voice mail messages. She resolved to listen to them on her lunch hour, put the cell phone on vibrate, stuck it in her back pocket, and hurried back to the ATV. Bruce had loaded the last of the tools, and the driver had the ATV rolling forward before Gillian was fully in her seat. She slapped one hand atop her hat and held on tightly. They rattled out along the little cemetery roads until they got to the next row that needed work.
A few hours of removing dead annuals and trimming perennials on the graves, and her back was sore with good, hard work and her right shoulder only ached a little. Gillian called a lunch break, and the crew sta
rted back to the greenhouse as the sun gilded the heavy woods to the north.
Chapter Five
Saturday, October 25. 8:00 P.M.
On the south side of Lake Ontario, dotted between Derby Harbor and the Niagara River, buildings that had once been summer cottages had been winterized into homes, and larger luxury houses had sprung up in the jagged land between, perched on rocky shorelines or tucked into forested glens. The homes in most of this area could only be reached by one-lane paths, numbered fire-lanes that were little more than winding dirt trails, barely wide enough in some spots to allow the passage of a car. Gillian and Frankie’s maternal great-uncle had owned many of these cottages back when they were run-down shacks, and fortune had left a few to be divided between the girls. After Frankie’s divorce, she and her two young sons had settled into one that required the least fixing-up, where she’d made a cozy home off the beaten path. They were close enough to town to run in for groceries in under half an hour, depending on whether or not the bridge at the canal was up or down, but far enough from the city of St. Catharines to feel like they were living in their own lakeside retreat.
On a soft autumn night, with an unseasonably warm breeze pushing the maples and cedars around and casting shadows on the driveway, Gillian expected her sister’s windows to be open. It did not escape her notice that they were shut up tight, a detail that might have been missed by some; Gillian had spent eight years married to a cop, and her attention to details had been finely honed by the time of Greg’s death. As she approached, the smell of old wood and decades of embedded polish and wax hung heavy in the air. Most of the old cottages smelled like churches, she’d always thought, especially Frankie’s, with her love of incense.
Frankie did not greet her at the door, but yelled, “Come in?”
More a question than permission. It forced Gillian to dig out her house key and let herself in. Her sister was bundled in a ball on the couch, and turned brooding eyes up at her. Wary. Exhausted.