Inger Wolfe - The Taken

“Colin Eldwin’s house.”

“Well, he told you that much at least.”

“That’s who he’s abducted.”

Ilunga’s upper lip quivered a little. “Well, I guess he got his man then. Good for him. You want something on q.t.? Colin Eldwin is a piece of garbage – we looked into him long and hard at Goodman’s insistence. That man would have fucked a snake if he could have got it to hold still, but he had an alibi the night of Cameron’s death and it was watertight, if you’ll excuse the choice of words. If Goodman’s managed to snatch him a second time, you two should just stay out of his way and let the law of the jungle run its course.”

Now Hazel finally had something to say. “He doesn’t just have Eldwin. He has Cameron’s mother as well.”

“He’s abducted the victim’s mother?”

“Not physically. But emotionally, yes. He’s co-opted her. She’s the other suspect in the abduction.”

“You see? You see what a clusterfuck Goodman is? He worked under me for fifteen years and he was a great cop.” Ilunga pushed his forefinger against his head. “But if this goes rogue, because you think too much and you don’t have any discipline, then you start thinking the walls are passing on their secrets to you and only you. Goodman lost it, and you will too if you follow him into his rabbit hole.”

She took in what he was saying. “Superintendent… we owe you an apology. We didn’t know any of this.”

“You should have asked.”

“We didn’t know to ask. We didn’t know any of this until we got here.”

Ilunga laid his electric gaze on both of them, one at a time. “So what are you going to do?”

“We’re going to find some way to let him know we’ve gotten ourselves off his hook. And hopefully we’ll find Eldwin before Goodman kills him.”

“Don’t sweat it if you can’t,” said Ilunga. “One less piece of shit on the planet won’t make a difference. And frankly, if Goodman gets satisfaction, maybe I’ll never see him in my rearview mirror again.”

She turned to Wingate. “Well?”

“Well, what?” he said angrily.

“Let’s go.”

“You’re kidding me.”

She didn’t answer him and he left the office without another word. Hazel extended her hand to Superintendent Ilunga. “We were just trying to do our jobs, Sir,” she said.

“Do them elsewhere,” he said, smiling again. “And call ahead if you need anything next time.”

She laughed good-naturedly and closed the door behind her.

She had to speedwalk down the hall to catch Wingate. “Slow up,” she whispered hoarsely to him.

“For what? You got other asses to kiss?”

“James.” Her tone made him stop. “You don’t fight little Napoleons like Ilunga. You go along. They’re deaf to any subtlety if you flatter them a little.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

“He doesn’t know how far we’ve gotten. He thinks we’re trying to read tea leaves. Let him sit and stew in there – in the meantime Toles is working for us and if he gives us half a reason to reopen the case, Ilunga can shout all he wants, but we’ll have carte blanche.”

“And if the lab comes back a bust? That thing’s been in a bag for three years.”

“Then we’re done down here.”

“And Colin Eldwin is a dead man.”

She waited for two constables to pass behind them. “The results don’t matter, James. If Goodman wants to know what we find out from CFS, he’s going to have to show himself. And we’ll be back on our own turf when he does.”

“It doesn’t sound like a plan, yet.”

“Have some faith, James. We’ve gotten this far.” She looked at her watch. “In the meantime, I’ve got to track down Toles and make sure he’s as green as he looks. We’re not going to get this all done in one day.” She looked back toward Ilunga’s door and then quickly stole forward to Room 32. She went in and out quickly. “I hope you weren’t planning on sleeping in your own bed tonight.”

“Skip?”

“I mean get us a couple of rooms somewhere, Detective.” She grinned at him. “I like you, James, but I just don’t think it would -”

“- I knew what you meant.”

“I know you did.” She started off down the hallway and then spun on her heel and walked backwards a couple of paces. “You should have seen the look on your face, though.”

Hazel called in first thing in the morning and got Monday’s report from Costamides. As she’d expected, nothing had appeared on the website, in fact, the feed was dead. She salted this away: with both Goodman and Cameron in Toronto, that suggested the basement they were looking for wasn’t in the city. That bird was going to have to be killed with another stone. Costamides told her the Record had done as instructed: both of the missing chapters of “The Mystery of Bass Lake” had appeared in the Monday edition. Hazel wasn’t sure what value appearing to follow instructions would have now, but the abductors had threatened more bodily damage to their victim if the chapters didn’t run, and Hazel hoped they would keep their word, at least for the time being. The least powerful impression she’d formed over the last twenty-four hours was the one concerning Eldwin’s guilt. Whether he’d committed a murder or not, she was intent on bringing him out of that basement alive. If he was a killer, then he could stand trial; she would not let Goodman or Cameron mete out their own brand of justice. That would constitute the ultimate failure on her part.

She thanked Costamides and got Toles at his desk. He’d been able to work his charms: the results of the examination of the sweater would be ready sometime before lunch. Hazel thanked him copiously and then suggested that since he’d messed with CFS protocol, it might be a good idea for them to get his friend to fax her results somewhere unofficial. “Cover your tracks in case someone thinks ill of a new DC jumping the queue on his own say-so.” Toles saw merit in the suggestion. He called back half an hour later to say that his contact was faxing the results to the Kinko’s on University, above Dundas. He’d told her to use a cover sheet addressing the pages to “D. Hammett.”

“Good one,” said Hazel.

“The whole escapade is costing me dinner at Lucy Than’s new restaurant. Not that I’m complaining,” he added.

“Dinner’s on Westmuir County, Detective. With our thanks for a job well done.”

She waited until noon and then, under dark skies, she walked from the hotel to the Kinko’s Toles had told her the fax would be waiting at. The geniuses behind the desk searched through a pile of papers and insisted there was nothing for a Mrs. Hammett. Hazel went around the corner for a coffee, thinking perhaps Toles’s connection at CFS had a later lunch than most people. Wandering down Dundas toward Yonge Street with her hot coffee, she found herself thinking of Hammett and his heavily alcoholized detective Nick Charles: she knew why she felt the kinship. She’d always loved the elegance of The Thin Man , despite the sheer level of stupefaction in it. She hadn’t read it in years and wondered if Wingate had ever read it: she could repay his Dickens with something she loved. There was a used bookstore just down the street she’d seen wandering the day before and she went in and perused the crime section. No Hammett. But she browsed a bit longer, thinking if she was going to have to stay over another night in Toronto, she might want a book to read. A paperback with the title Utter Death caught her eye and she brought it to the counter to pay. “Is he very popular?” she asked.

“People like him,” said the guy at the cash. “We can’t keep him in stock.”