Inger Wolfe - The Taken

“I go to the gym, I go out with friends, I go to the library. You think Toronto is the kind of place you strike up conversations with people on the street? And then they come home for a cup of Lemon Zinger and you’re BFFs?”

“You’re what?”

“Never mind.” She turned and opened the door sharply. Hazel crossed the room quickly and put her hand on her daughter’s.

“Hey – wait… I’m sorry, Martha. Honestly. I hate saying the wrong thing. I only want you to be happy and feel loved.”

“I know,” said Martha, quietly. She was already embarrassed that she’d shown her vulnerability to her mother. She was always see-sawing back and forth between appearing strong and being helpless. She hated it. “I should let you get some rest.” She still hadn’t looked her mother in the eye.

“Do you accept my apology?”

“I do,” said Martha.

“Will I see you in the morning?”

“Yeah.”

She let her go.

When the door closed, Hazel went over to the couch and sat down. She pulled the gift that had to be the bottle over toward herself and opened the card attached to it. The card said We can still raise a glass, right? Hope this is still your brand. Ray . She felt less pissed off after reading the card, but the discomfort remained.

Her mother had bought her a beautiful blouse; Glynnis and Andrew a matching pair of slacks. The gift from Wingate was a copy of Great Expectations . Sweet man. She’d never read Dickens. Nor had she ever had great expectations – it was nice that he thought it still possible.

The final gift was from Robert and Gail Chandler, a long, purple silk scarf. It was gorgeous. She wrapped it around her neck and then pulled Greene’s bottle toward herself and stared at it a long time.

It had been more than thirty-six hours since her last Percocet and her nerves had been crying out for solace ever since. But the adrenaline that had been roaring through her since the visit to Willan had done some of the work she’d counted on the pill to do. To painkill, yes, but also to numb, to reduce the noise in her head. After her birthday evening, though, she could feel the noise returning. The burn in her guts, the dizziness, the shakes. She recalled the small object wrapped in tinfoil that she’d had in her pants pocket yesterday. She went to the closet and found it still in the pocket of the black slacks she’d worn yesterday. She unwrapped the pill and held it in her fingers. How could something that small take such a hold of a person? She lifted it to her mouth and touched her tongue to it. It was bitter, like aspirin, and she thought she could feel it sizzling. In a day or two, it would begin to get easier: she believed this now. She was on the dividing line between one life and another and she need do nothing to cross it; the line was coming toward her. On the other side of it was a manageable pain, a clearer head, maybe even her own pillow and sheets. And, more importantly, she was going to need a clear head from here on in. There was a chance to save the man in the video; a chance to save “her,” whoever she was.

She went into the bathroom and flushed the pill down the toilet. It turned in smaller and smaller circles, arrowing in on something like it was supposed to do in the body, and then it was gone into the grey tube in the middle of the bowl as if down a throat and she pictured it streaming end over end into the sewer. From one bottomless place to another. It was progress.

She was in early on Friday morning and called a meeting with Wingate, Sergeant Geraldine Costamides, and Kraut Fraser. These were her most senior people now and she was going to need them. After confirming that nothing had changed on the website, she ushered them all into the office and closed the door behind them.

“Where are we with the prints from Eldwin’s house?” she began.

“I had to send the mouse down to Spere,” said Fraser. “It’s going to take more than powder to get a print off that thing.”

“Why?” She noticed Wingate was looking down at the ground.

“Well, your cubscout there was standing in a room full of things Eldwin’s touched, including a keyboard -”

“- how’m I supposed to smuggle a keyboard out of Eldwin’s house?”

“Anyway,” Fraser continued, “there are about two hundred imprints of the guy’s index finger all on the same spot – click click click! – a giant smudge where his thumb spends half its life, and a latent of half a pinky. Then there’s a partial print of the palm, from the base of the thumb. So Spere’s going to have to collect and collate digitally. He told me he’d have an answer by the end of the day.”

“Fine,” said Hazel, and she shot Wingate a look. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s focus on our next move.”

“Which is?”

“Geraldine, I have a job for you if you’re up for it.” Costamides turned her attention to her. Hazel didn’t get much chance to work with this sergeant, as Costamides preferred to work nights, but she liked her. “How’d you like to eat crow on behalf of your commanding officer?”

“I’m listening.”

“I browbeat Gordon Sunderland’s young deputy into cancelling yesterday’s instalment of ‘The Mystery of Bass Lake.’ I’d like you to go back over there and employ your charm in shaking loose the chapter that didn’t appear. And any others they’ve received since we visited their offices on Wednesday.”

“I think I can do that.”

Hazel knew she could. It was Gerry on whom the job of wrangling difficult favours often fell. She had a certain way of holding herself – solid and sad all at once – that made it hard for people to say no to her. The irony was that, unlike most people, Costamides did not have the face she deserved. She was one of the most joyful, vital people on the force. Hazel thanked her, and Costamides left right away for the newspaper’s offices.

“I’ll check up on Spere,” said Fraser, and he left too.

When the door was closed, Wingate said, “Sorry about the mouse. I didn’t know it would be that hard to get fingerprints off -”

“I told you not to worry about it,” she said, and she sat behind her desk.

“I’m sure Gerry will get you what you need from the Record.”

“Yeah. She will.” She pulled the cellphone off the table and pocketed it. “In the good old days, I would have had Ray handle it. He could be subtle.” She shook her head sadly. “You know he sent me a bottle for my birthday.”

“That was nice of him.”

“I guess that means I should call.”

“Maybe you should,” said Wingate. “Maybe if…”

“Don’t finish that thought.”

He didn’t. “You know,” he said quietly, “back in Toronto, people didn’t get as close as you guys do up here. We didn’t live on top of each other.”

“It’s probably better that way.”

“I’m not so sure,” he said. “I like the sense that everything matters here. I like people taking things personally.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to take things personally in Port Dundas, James. Be careful what you wish for.” She was looking at the computer screen. The dripping SAVE HER was revealing itself anew. An awful lot of planning had gone into what they’d seen over the last seven days, almost as if the people who had uploaded this material knew their audience better than it knew itself. Hazel entertained, for just a moment, an inside element, someone within these walls who was communicating, either on purpose or unwittingly, with the perpetrators. But what made better sense was that the people who were driving this macabre charade had a strong grasp of investigative process. They knew it would not take long after the mannequin was found for the police to make their way to the website. And at that point, they’d have the attention of the OPS for as long as they wanted it. It made her feel like there was a ghost sitting on her shoulder. That made her think of what was sitting on her other shoulder. “I don’t think I told you I met with Commander Willan. You know, Mason’s replacement?”