The driver pulled out from the parking lot, turned left and soon pulled up right behind the square car as the light turned green. The two cars left together.
“He can’t realize that we’re following him.”
“Oh, of course,” the driver said. “Otherwise, what would be the fun?”
Frieda thought about hiding under her hood but decided that she would be less recognizable with her new haircut. Then, she realized why the license plates were unusual.
The car was from Washington State.
I hope I have enough money for this.
Chapter Sixteen
As her cab crossed the bridge into downtown Vancouver, Frieda made a mental note. They were passing over Granville Island, where she had spent much of the day with Tess.
Worst-case scenario, if I can get to Granville Street, I can make it back on foot.
She checked her phone and saw that she had seventy percent battery left. Frieda had never been downtown alone. False Creek separated downtown from much of the lower mainland. She lived in Kitsilano, a more rural neighborhood of Vancouver, with none of the tall buildings of downtown, and just a short bus ride from Henry’s.
In fact, Frieda had only been downtown for shopping with Sarah, field trips to the art gallery and Science World, Whitecaps soccer games with her dad, and the one time that Henry had taken her to the big comic convention.
From the bridge, Frieda could already see the dome of BC Place Stadium getting larger as they crossed the Fraser River into downtown.
Granville Street looked so different on this side of the bridge. In Henry’s neighborhood, Granville was mostly fancy clothing stores, art galleries, cafés and a theatre. These blocks had theatres, too, but it was a different crowd, a louder crowd. Even in the early evening like this, through the windows of the cab, she could hear shouts, laughter, music from bars and pubs, and buskers strewn here and there.
Her mum always said that you should remember the number of the taxi you ride in, in case you realize that you’ve left something. So she looked over the seat into the front and asked, “What cab number is this?”
“This is two hundred and fifty.”
Her comment must have invited conversation.
“Who is it we’re following?” the driver asked.
This seemed like one of those times where it was alright to lie, like when you’re home alone and someone calls asking for your mum or dad. In that case, you were allowed to say that your parents were home, but unavailable.
“It’s one of my dad’s friends. I just need to see where that car is going. Do you know what kind of car that is?”
“That is some kind of Chrysler. A K-car, I think. Very popular car back in the day.”
The car in front turned off Granville and the cab driver put his signal on to follow. “You’re doing a great job,” Frieda said. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Naim. What is your name?” he asked, looking into the mirror to see over his shoulder.
“My name is Fred.”
That’s the best alias I can come up with?
“I’m named after my dad.”
Gah!
Naim raised one curious eyebrow. “And may I ask why Fred is following Mr. K-car?”
Frieda stammered. Paused. Stammered again. What was she going to say? This weird guy keeps stealing my uncle’s newspapers and I have to prove it so that he can find love and happiness? Pretty sure that would make her the creepy one.
She thought too long and her moment to convincingly lie passed.
“I don’t want to say,” she confessed. “I just need to see where he is going and then I can go back.”
“Okay. Should I wait for you?”
She scanned the street as they turned right onto West Hastings. “I’m not sure yet. Can I decide when we get there?”
Frieda looked at the meter. It rolled over to twenty-one dollars. This was getting to be an expensive adventure. It had seemed like a good idea, but she was beginning to question her judgment.
West Hastings turned into East Hastings. The people on the sidewalk hustling in suits and jogging in clean, tight clothing turned into people sitting on the cement curbs, standing around shopping carts, or lying down. Outside of the dilapidated Lampert hotel, a dozen people leaned against the building.
Frieda’s chest clenched as the K-car turned right and then left, backing into an alley. The cab slowed, rolled past, and pulled over.
“He’s parked in there.” Naim motioned with his thumb to the alley.
“If I pay you more, will you stay for a few minutes?”
“You don’t need to pay me any more than the meter. I’ll stick around.” Looking through the back window at where they were, he asked, “Are you sure that you need to get out?”
Frieda closed her eyes and checked in with herself. She wasn’t afraid. She felt sad for the people on the street, but not threatened. Her hand came up, and she rubbed the brass brooch that held her cloak. “I’ll be fine,” she said, handing Naim some cash. She got out, being sure to look back at the seat in case she’d left anything.
“Please stay. I won’t be long,” she said, pulling up her hood.
Naim gave her a comforting nod.
Mr. Creepy had already exited the alley and was heading back down to East Hastings. Frieda stayed on her side of the street and kept pace with him. He turned the corner. Watching for traffic, she bolted across the street. Frieda peered with one eye around the side of the building onto East Hastings and saw him disappear into a shop two doors down. She stepped around the corner for a better perspective. A bright green sign above the door read Welcome Pharmacy.
A small voice said, “Could you spare any change?”
Next to Frieda, sitting in front of a shop with barred windows, a young woman looked up at her, holding a paper coffee cup. A tall and dirty blue backpack rested against the building. Frieda thought the woman looked young, and fit, and as ordinary as herself. Only the tired expression and sun-hardened skin were different.
A sign in the window read We Buy Gold in large red-on-yellow letters.
This seems like the last neighborhood where people would be carrying gold.
She dug into her pocket and dropped her coins into the coffee-less cup.
The young woman whispered, “Merci,” her eyes unwavering from Frieda.
Something about the blue backpack nagged at Frieda’s mind.
Mr. Creepy was carrying a bag when he left the house.
She pictured him walking out of the alley in her mind and realized that he didn’t have it with him right now. She turned with a flourish of her cloak and ran back up the hill to the alley. She had never picked the lock of a car before, but she thought she might be able to. She caught Naim watching her as she ducked into the alley and gave him one index finger in the air.
One minute.
I hope.
Her excitement deflated when she saw that the driver’s side door of the car was unlocked. No lock-picking was required.
She crossed to the far side of the car and looked again in either direction for any other people in the alley.
Frieda opened the door, careful not to hit the neighboring brick building. The shoulder bag lay on the front seat. Her mind was dizzy with adrenalin. She dove in and began unzipping.
The bag was a mess of paper, like she imagined the contents of a boy’s school locker. Feeling inside, she recognized a laptop, a flashlight, a picture frame, and pens. She stirred through the paper and saw a page from a newspaper: a crossword. This she stuffed into her own satchel and rummaged through the bag for more pages. She found only photos, and a folder with neat, tidy sheets.
Frieda opened the folder and Henry’s name jumped out from a list of names on the first page.
The air changed instantly around her, like the first smell of ozone from a coming storm. Her stomach cramped and she needed to pee.
Frieda grabbed the sheet with the names and a handful more loose pages from the folder. She
lost moments separating a twenty-dollar bill and putting it back. As quickly as she could, she zipped the pack up, backed out of the car, and closed the door.
A figure on foot turned into the alley an instant after the dome light of the car flickered off. Frieda ducked below the driver’s side window, her eyes straining to adjust to the darkness and see through the windows. The shadow walked to the vehicle.
She slid low to the ground and flattened herself up against the door. Deep, measured breaths didn’t slow the pounding of blood in her arms and legs.
The sounds of the passenger door unlocking and opening were followed by the sudden brightness of the dome light. The rustling in the car lasted only a few seconds and the light and door were closed again. Footsteps crunched on the bits of gravel that had somehow found their way onto the paved alley street. Frieda shifted her weight onto her left foot, preparing to launch herself into a sprint to the waiting cab.
With her back to the car, her head swung left and right as her eyes readjusted to the darkness.
She held her breath and wondered if she could make it to a count of sixty.
At four, the footsteps started anew. Over the trunk, she caught the first glimpse of the massive man circling around to the driver’s side.
Could she outrun him? If he was fat, maybe. But he was big, so maybe not.
Frieda sprung to her feet and grabbed the driver’s door handle, pulling it open as hard as she could. The metal door scraped against the brick building and stuck fast. Light spilled out of the car, between her and Mr. Creepy, before she twirled away to the alley’s exit.
She heard the man shouting behind her and ran as fast as she could to the cab, getting in on the street side.
“Start the car!”
Naim was pulling away before she had fully closed the door behind her. Frieda hammered it locked with her fist and looked back for the first time. No one followed. But the startled look on Mr. Creepy’s face when their eyes met was burned into her mind.
Naim appeared relieved to see her again. “Are we ready for home?”
“Yes, please, Naim,” she said between breaths. “Thank you for waiting.”
Feelings of success tempered her adrenalin. By the time she got back, she would only have been gone forty-five minutes.
And under budget.
Still, her hands shook as she flattened the page with the names onto the seat next to her. It was a handwritten list of the apartments in Henry’s building. Two were circled. Unit 2 – 121702 BC Ltd. and Unit 5 – Ronald Benham.
Naim made small talk on the way back to Richardson Street, but Frieda’s mind was too distracted to engage with anything other than a dull yes or no, and to provide the address to the café across from Henry’s.
She watched Naim drive away before crossing the street to the apartment building. The roads were empty, but sirens shrieked in the distance. Shima greeted Frieda inside Henry’s suite, flopping down in front of her for strokes along his chest.
She flipped back her hood, her wool cloak falling to the floor in a heap behind. Her hand shot to her shoulder.
Where’s my brooch?
Oh, God, please let it be in Naim’s cab.
Chapter Seventeen
Henry heard the sirens before the others. The first one hadn’t given him pause. The house was only blocks from Vancouver General and the sound of ambulances was a common background noise. He noticed that these were much louder, though, and there were several.
“Hang on a sec,” he said to Bernadette and Tess, before rising from the couch and walking to the window.
A fire engine and an ambulance were parked in front of the house. There was no activity on the small lawn between the building and the sidewalk, but the lone fireman standing next to his engine was looking in Henry’s direction.
“They’re here.”
“What do you mean?” Tess asked.
“I think they’ve gone downstairs.”
Bernadette stood up, kicking over a glass tumbler of ice. “Ron!” She rushed out the door and down the stairs.
Henry and Tess followed. Henry stopped to look in on Frieda who, apparently, could sleep through anything. He closed the bedroom door behind him before catching up with the others.
Outside, the front yard was a muted chaos. Red and white lights strobed against the front of the house and into the looming branches of the old chestnut tree. The loud, low rumble from the idling fire engine seemed to absorb as much sound as it produced. Activity centered on Ron’s suite, half below ground and hidden from the street by a holly bush.
Henry stopped at the top of the steps and peered down through the open front door.
Paramedics lifted an old man wearing an oxygen mask onto a gurney. Bernadette was already next to the patient, holding one of his thin hands.
Two firemen in bulky jackets and pants emerged from the basement suite and guided Henry and Tess out of the way as the paramedics maneuvered the gurney to the door. One held a clear plastic bag aloft and spoke to Ron, asking questions. As the group crossed the lawn, the idle responder on the sidewalk was spurred to action. He hustled to the back of the ambulance and opened the door.
Bernadette collapsed into Tess as the procession with Ron passed them. “Someone attacked Ron,” she said between shallow, quick breaths. Her face was red and wet with tears, her eyes wild with panic. “I have to go with him.” She rolled out of Tess’s arms and started after Ron and the paramedics.
Stunned, Henry turned to the nearest firefighter. “Are you taking him to VGH?” He pointed at Bernadette. “Can she ride in the ambulance? She doesn’t have a car and neither do I.”
“Are you family?”
“I’m a neighbor. We’re all neighbors. I don’t know if he has family.”
“Yeah.” The firefighter was far too calm for Henry’s liking. “Well, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t go to Vancouver General. He needs immediate attention. He’s dehydrated and he may have suffered a series of strokes. Jesse!” The firefighter shouted over Henry’s shoulder and motioned towards Bernadette. “Okay if she rides along?”
“S’fine!” yelled back the paramedic at the foot of the gurney who was already speaking to Bernadette.
Henry peered into the apartment but could see little from the doorway.
The firefighter interrupted his curiosity. “Did one of you call 911?”
Henry blinked and shook his head. “No. We were all upstairs. All except Mr. Benham.”
He looked over his shoulder at the ambulance. Tess and Bernadette were there. More sirens grew close.
“Well, someone called.”
“It wasn’t Mr. Benham?”
With a sympathetic wince, the firefighter said, “I don’t think that he could have placed the call.”
Henry ran over to Tess, standing next to the ambulance. Before he could get a word out, Bernadette asked, “Can you stay here, in case we need something?”
“Of course,” Tess said. “Call me for anything.”
Bernadette nodded, sobbing, and pulled herself the rest of the way into the ambulance.
Henry and Tess stood with arms touching as the ambulance pulled away, revealing two police cruisers.
A voice from behind. “What happened?”
Henry turned to see Frieda at the front door of the house, barefooted in her cloak. He walked up the steps to her, shaking his head.
“It’s Mr. Benham.”
“Was he attacked?”
Frieda’s face paled, and Henry chastised himself for scaring her. “No. Nothing like that. Maybe he had a heart attack or stroke. It could have been an accident.”
“Where did Bernadette go?” Frieda asked.
“The hospital with Mr. Benham,” Henry said. “I think they’re like family.”
A police cruiser had arrived, and Tess was speaking with one of the uniformed officers. A fireman led the other officer into the basement below.
As Tess was gesturing upwards towards her own suite, Henry caught her eye
. He motioned at Frieda and pointed inside the building. She gave a thumbs up.
“Come on,” Henry said, steering the young girl into the house by her shoulders. “Bernadette and Tess are going to keep us updated on Mr. Benham. The best thing we can do is get back to bed. We’ll find out more in the morning.”
“Do the police want to talk to us?”
“No, Fred. We don’t know anything.”
Chapter Eighteen
Tess was sitting with one of the police officers at the bottom of the steps when Henry came back outside. It was hard to see stars past the bright streetlight, but the cool air suggested it was a cloudless night.
The two of them could have been sisters. Tess was the relaxed, artsy one who cut her hair short. Constable Tipton, as she introduced herself, was the serious one, with her red hair pulled back in a stern ponytail that could only have been braided by someone obsessed with perfection. Otherwise, they sounded and looked alike. Both sat with perfect upright posture, Tipton’s aided in part by whatever bulky vest she wore beneath her uniform.
“Have we heard if he’s going to be okay?”
“Bernadette texted to say they are running tests, whatever that means. They need to figure out what it was. He may have had multiple heart attacks.”
Henry looked back and forth between the two women. “So, why are the police still here?”
“My partner is downstairs right now,” Tipton said. “We are following up on the call to 911.”
“From whom?”
“Exactly. We don’t know, but Tess was telling me that you were all upstairs this evening, is that right?”
“Yeah. I mean, Frieda was downstairs, but she wouldn’t know anything. She’s just a kid.”
“The call came from a payphone downtown. This much we can tell. And you were out all afternoon as well? Tess tells me she and your niece got back around five.”
“I wasn’t much later than that,” Henry said.
Tess squinted hard at Henry.
The Constable must not have noticed Henry squirming under Tess’s inspection, as she rose from the steps.
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