The Taken

20

It was a drive like any they’d taken to visit one or the other daughter at school in Toronto, drives to campuses, the back seat loaded with Chelsea buns from the bakery, a box of Tide, a crate of apples, perhaps a couple new shirts or a case of local beer, and a suitcase packed for one night. Often these trips down to the city were precipitated by some crisis, usually minor, in one of the girls’ lives, and yes, if Hazel were honest with herself, it was usually Martha who spurred them to action. So often these drives were punctuated by feelings of anxiety and anticipation: what untoward shock had the girl prepared for them this time? And they’d arrive at her downtown sorority and try to ignore the accusing or worried looks of the sisters as they went up the stairs to Martha’s room to see what needed putting back together again.

They drove out of town and stopped at Tim’s, him ordering her what she’d always order: a large double-double and a raisin tea biscuit. He got himself a steeped tea and a maple dip. These first twenty or so kilometres were the most familiar to them: they paced them out of everything that meant home to them, or told them that they were returning to it. But even here, things were changing; the suburban imperative was spreading farther north. Just before the town of Dublin, cornfields were being converted to “Modern Country Living,” which was to say, a grid of streets surrounding a shopping centre were going to be plunked down in the middle of what was still good land. The sign along the highway announced excitedly that the ground-breaking would take place in the fall. She noticed Andrew shaking his head.

An hour later, they passed Barrie and the highway angled into its final, long approach to the city. This length of road always soured her stomach and made her heart race – in anticipation of the difficulties to come or just because she was truly out of her element – and this time it was no different. The urban lichen was well established at this latitude (a preview of what awaited them at Dublin), and the new suburbs, each one built around an unwieldy palace of worship – a giant mosque, a towering white church, an outlet mall – had much the same architectural weight as the plastic buildings on a Monopoly board: a tidy arrangement of buildings that hid the fact that the environment was built for money, not for people. It was intended to capture and keep captive some segment of the population, upend them in the crush of prettiness, and empty their pockets. It occurred to her that, at least, the city itself could not hide its agendas. What it wanted from you it asked for once you passed through its gates.

They were driving eastward beside Lake Ontario. Its bright blue-black expanse shone in the sun, with the green gem of the Toronto Islands just a kilometre offshore. Ahead of them the towers of the city rose over the downtown like crystal, the needle of the CN Tower at its centre; from this vantage point the buildings looked like massive toys ajumble in a box. It seemed impossible that this much steel and glass and concrete could be in the same place, but as they approached it, the buildings stepped apart and the streets appeared between them, and then the cars and the bicycles and the people themselves and they were within it and part of it. There was always a strange thrill here, for Hazel, to be in this bustle, no matter how it scared her. “I think this is the first time since the girls moved out that we’ve been here for some reason other than to put out some fire in their lives.”

“Well, Emmie lives in Vancouver now. Harder to drive to.”

“It just seems like a different city without some small problem to attend to. Like anything could happen here.”

“And it usually does,” said Andrew.

“Let’s get the street guide out and let’s try to follow this guy’s directions.”

Andrew took the Perly’s out of the glove compartment and flipped it open to the page they were driving over. The world outside the car windows flattened out to red and yellow lines. “Spadina goes up past the no longer new stadium,” he said. “And into Chinatown.” They drove north past the theatre district and into bustling Chinatown. At a stoplight, a vegetable seller hacked the tops off coconuts with a heavy machete. North of Chinatown, the crazy quilt of restaurants and grocery stores gave way to more institutional buildings. This was the western boundary of the University of Toronto. They tracked up to Russell Street and pulled over.

“Okay,” said Hazel. “This is where you get to shine. Find me a tree-street. Or a fruit-street. With a church on it or somewhere near.”

He held the mapbook open in his lap and clutched the page from the story with the directions to the house in his right hand. His eyes shuttled back and forth between his hand and the Perly’s. She leaned over toward him and scanned the pages along with him. There was a Hazelton Avenue, but not a Hazelnut, and a Concord, as in grape, but no Apple Street, no Banana Avenue. Leaning this close to his shoulder, she was reminded of what her mother had said about her father’s book bag and she pulled back a little.

“There’s a Chestnut Street pretty close to here. Beside City Hall,” he said.

“Church?”

“Not close by. Holy Trinity tucked in behind the Eaton Centre.”

“What else?”

“ Birch Avenue, up at Summerhill. Oh, there’s Elm Street too. That’s close. And there’s a church on St. Patrick Street, right around the corner.”

“Well, let’s go take a look at it,” she said.

He directed her into a U-turn and sent her east along College Street as he continued to study the mapbook.

“I just wanted to thank you again, Andrew.”

“For what?”

“For coming to our aid.”

“Your aid, you mean,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m getting a sushi lunch out of it, don’t forget. Turn right here.”

She drove south down Beverly, cut across Baldwin to McCaul. Elm Street was a short jog south, and they parked illegally and got out. There were no houses on the street, just big apartment buildings and offices. They were behind the hospital strip of University Avenue. Midtown rose up at the end of the street. “Doesn’t feel right,” she said.

They walked down the street. From the top of St. Patrick, they could see the spire of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. But the topography was all wrong. There wasn’t a front porch for miles around. Nor chestnut trees. “Maybe we should go down to City Hall and look around,” she said.

Andrew had the Perly’s open with the story held against one of the pages. He’d narrowed his eyes to slits. “No,” he said. “Listen to this.”

“What?”

“‘He was following her back into the living room,’” Andrew read, “‘as if magnetized to her. He could not tell a lie: he remembered now how much he’d loved her, how, in the beginning, when they lived in that house together, he would have done anything for her.’” Andrew looked up into Hazel’s questioning eyes. “He could not tell a lie. When they lived in that house together? On Cherry Tree Lane?”

“You really have always thought I’m much smarter than I actually am. Spell it out, Andrew.”

“Who cannot tell a lie?”

“Pinocchio?”

“George Washington, dummy.” He shifted the story over to the right-hand page. “There’s a Washington Avenue back off Spadina.”

“Why doesn’t he just say this, if it’s so fucking important to him.”

“I think he wants it to be important to you too.”

“Let’s go.”

Washington Avenue was lined with chestnut trees, and at the end of it there were two small green spaces and, where it made a “T” with Huron Street, a church. They parked and stepped out and a horripilating thrill went up Hazel’s back. It felt now that she had stepped into someone else’s territory and she wasn’t entirely sure that they were safe. “Would you be offended if I suggested you wait in the cruiser?” she asked him and he said he would be, so the two of them set out along the sidewalks to find the house under a chestnut, with a verandah and a view of both parks and the church. The houses on the south side of the street didn’t afford these views, so they focussed on the northern side of the street. Those houses closer to Spadina lacked the necessary vantage, and they ruled out the first half of the street. Four big Victorian duplexes took up the second half of the street, two with verandahs and two without. But only one stood directly in the shade of a chestnut tree, number thirty-two. Like all of these houses, many of which were owned by the university, number thirty-two was divided into apartments. There were five of them and five buzzers under different names. They buzzed P. Billows, J. Cameron, G. Caro, and D. Payne before they got a response. It was a woman’s voice. “Hello?”

“Police, Ma’am, sorry to disturb you. Who am I speaking to?”

“How do I know you’re the police?”

“I’m in a police uniform and I have police ID. Those will be your first two clues.”

There was a pause, and they heard a window open above their heads. A young woman in jeans and a white T-shirt leaned out to the side of the verandah with her portable phone to her ear. Hazel held her ID up over her head. “What do you want?” said the woman.

“You’re Miss Caro? Or Miss Payne?”

“I’m Gail Caro. What do you want?”

“I wanted to ask you if there have been any recent disturbances in this house. Anything out of the ordinary, anything that required the attention of the police?”

“Like what?”

“I’m asking you. Anything.”

“No.”

“Do you know everyone who lives in this house?”

Her attention had tracked over to Andrew, who was standing with his back to the house, looking down the street. “Who’s that? He’s not in uniform.”

“Plainclothes,” she said, and she could see Andrew stifling a grin.

“How’d you get here? Where’s your car?”

Jeez, thought Hazel. She’d forgotten how paranoid city life could be. She pointed toward Huron Street, to the cruiser, and the woman leaned farther out the window and looked at it.

“So,” said Hazel. “Who do you know in the house?”

“No one. I see them on the stairs, but I live alone. People come and go from places like this.”

“Is there a basement in the house?”

“There’s storage.”

“Could we come in and look at it?”

Caro paused. “Just hold on a second,” she said, and she closed the window.

“Are you sure you want to go in there?” asked Andrew.

She laid her hand on her Glock. “That’s why I asked you to stay in the car.”

“Don’t you need a warrant?”

“I thought you were the lawyer here, Andrew.”

“I don’t need to know about warrants to settle property disputes.”

“We have cause to enter the premises. And anyway, if she consents, we don’t need a warrant.”

They waited on the porch. After a couple of minutes, Hazel buzzed Caro’s apartment. There was no answer. “I don’t like the feel of this.”

“Let’s go.”

She stood back from the door and called up to the now-closed window. “Miss Caro?” There was no reply.

“Hazel?”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Hazel,” said Andrew, his hand on her forearm. She turned to the street and saw a police car driving up. “The local cavalry have arrived.”

The black-and-white cruiser pulled up in front of number thirty-two, and Hazel saw a man and a woman in the car; the female cop was talking into her radio. “Shit,” she said.

The officers got out of the car. They were both tall and well built, a pair of stars. “Good morning,” said the male officer, coming up the walk. He was inventorying them both quickly, deciding whether this was going to be routine or not. “What seems to be the problem?” The casual opener, thought Hazel. “Can I see some ID, Ma’am?”

“I’m OPS, Officer. I presume you’ve seen the uniform before.”

“Nature of the call, Ma’am. I just have to be sure.”

She got her ID out, and he took it from her, flipped it open. He studied it briefly and handed it back to her, saying, “Detective Inspector.” He looked at Andrew. “You’re not OPS, Sir?”

“No.”

“She said he was plainclothes,” called a voice from above. It was Gail Caro. “They don’t look like cops. You can get a policeman’s costume from a hundred stores in this town.”

“It’s okay,” called the officer. His nametag said K. Hutchins. “They’re provincial, Ma’am.” He had his arm on Andrew’s elbow and turned to his partner. “Constable Childress will keep you busy for a couple of minutes, Sir. I’m going to talk to your, um, partner.”

She watched Childress lead her ex-husband away helplessly. Hutchins stepped away from the house and onto the lawn and she followed him. The window on the second floor had closed again. “What brings you to Toronto, Detective Inspector Micallef?”

He’d pronounced her name the way anyone who’d only ever seen it written pronounced it. Mickel-eff. It made her skin crawl to hear it that way.

“It’s mih-CAY-liff, Officer, and we’ve got reason to believe someone living in this house could be involved in an abduction we’re investigating.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Not exactly,” she said. She was pleased to note she was getting what seemed like cooperation. The OPS, of course, had province-wide jurisdiction; she could investigate anything she cared to anywhere she cared to. But the Toronto Police Services weren’t always the biggest fans of what they sometimes called the “Kountry Kops” and you couldn’t always count on friendly support.

“What brings you to this house, then? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I don’t. Let me show you something,” she said. He had to make way for her when he realized she needed to go to her car. She walked down the lawn to the street. She saw Childress had spared Andrew the humiliation of having to sit in the back seat of the black-and-white, but she wondered exactly how long it would take before he had real regrets about agreeing to help her. But as she walked past him, her eyes lowered, he whispered her name urgently.

“I have to get something,” she said.

“It is ‘damaged.’ The street name. It’s an anagram.”

“What?”

“Detective Inspector,” said Hutchins from the front of the house. “We have other calls… sorry to rush you.”

Hazel carried on to the car and got the photocopied pages of chapters four and five of the story, as well as a copy of the Westmuir Record in which the first chapter had appeared. She returned to Constable Hutchins and handed him all the paper. “I better set this up.”

She went over it with him. When she got to the part about the hand in her basement, Hutchins called his partner over and asked Hazel to start again. As she spoke, Andrew crept up and finally stood with them, and the two Toronto officers passed the pages back and forth. When she got to their reason for being in the city, Constable Childress had the Record from May 16 open to page five and looked at the picture of Eldwin beside his name, the picture of him standing in a parking lot. “This your missing guy?”

“We think so.”

“He looks like a used car salesman.”

“I think he might have that kind of character,” Hazel said.

“And has anything happened since the ‘save her’ message?” Childress asked.

“Nothing,” Hazel said. “I think we’re supposed to work through what we’ve been given first -”

“Given?” said Childress.

“Yes. We’re going on hints here.”

“A severed hand is a hint?”

“The hints are backed up. Just in case we didn’t think there was anything urgent about this.”

“Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. So to speak.”

Hutchins backed away from them and went up onto the verandah of number thirty-two. He cupped his hands over the glass in a window on the main floor and tried to look in. Then he buzzed Gail Caro again.

“What?” came her tinny voice.

“Miss Caro, Constable Hutchins of the Toronto Police Services. Come open this door, please.”

“I’m not the landlord,” said Caro, “I can’t just let you in.”

“If I ask you to, you can. It’s just that easy.”

“Hold on a second for god’s sake.”

“You better hope she isn’t calling the RCMP now,” Hazel said, coming up on the porch.

They heard Caro clomping angrily down the stairs.

“Eternal cry here,” said Andrew quietly in Hazel’s ear.

“What?”

“ Cherry Tree Lane points you to the street, but it is ‘damaged’ as well. ‘ Cherry Tree Lane ’ is an anagram for ‘eternal cry here.’ I think this is a murder scene, Hazel.”