The Taken (29 page)

“She must have been crushed.”

Cameron ignored her. “It got bad enough that he broke up with her, finally. I guess even Colin Eldwin had his standards.”

Hazel had picked up the radiophone and moved into the dining room. She imagined candles on a table set for two. “Get to the night in question,” she said. “How do you know she was here?”

“He broke up with her in July, but she wouldn’t stay away. She had other troubles and they were clouding her judgment.”

“Drugs?”

“She’d been clean since the previous fall, but she started back on crack and she was unravelling. She showed up at my place a few times talking about how they were going to get back together, how she had a plan. He just needed her to show him the way back, she said. The night of August second, she was with me before she went to him.”

“And?”

“She said she was pregnant.”

Unbidden, the dead girl with the knifed fetus swam into Hazel’s mind. But she knew Brenda Cameron had not been pregnant.

“Said it was the sign she was waiting for. She was going over to tell him the good news.”

“She wasn’t pregnant, Joanne. I saw the report this morning, remember?”

“I know she wasn’t pregnant.”

“The members of your family stop at nothing to get what they want, do they?”

“She’s at the door,” she said quietly. “It’s about ten o’clock at night on August second. She knocks, calls his name.”

Hazel’s heart was thrashing now. She heard nothing, but when she turned to look back into the living room, she saw them in her mind’s eye, Brenda Cameron walking into the apartment, Eldwin standing there, his arms crossed. She asks him if he’s alone. He tells her she has to stop this, it’s over, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with her. She puts a hand on his arm, slides it down to his wrist, and puts his palm against her belly.

“We can’t know any of this,” Hazel said. “There were no witnesses to what they said to each other. To what happened here,
if
anything happened here. Just because you saw her and she told you she was coming to this house, it doesn’t mean she did. She might have gone straight to the ferry docks.”

“But she didn’t. She came here.”

“Fine. And then she killed herself. Whatever happened here that night drove her to it.”

“He drugged her. He knocked her out and dragged her across the floor. He took her out to his car –”

“No, Joanne,” Hazel said. “I know you want that to be true, but all of this is a figment of your grief. You and Dean Bellocque have abducted and wronged a man you
want
to be guilty of murdering your daughter. Have you thought about what it means if you’re wrong? Have you thought about what you’ve done?”

“I know what I’ve done.”

“I want to know where Colin Eld –” She stopped mid-sentence. She realized the last thing she’d heard had not come from the device she held in her hand. She looked down at it and saw the call had been disconnected.

From behind her, Cameron said, “There was a witness.”

Hazel dropped the phone and, in one motion, freed her gun from its holster and spun, weapon extended. Joanne Cameron was standing in the living room, the light from the closed venetians spreading in a bright fan around her body. She hadn’t flinched. Standing before her now, Cameron only faintly resembled that confident woman who’d shown up at her office one week ago. She looked smaller, her clothes hung off her, and her smart bead necklace looked cheap. She was holding a large white plastic bag with something inside weighing it down. Hazel’s eyes flicked between Cameron’s face and the bag. “Step back, Joanne,” she said. “Back away.”

Cameron ignored her and reached into the bag. Hazel decided if she brought out Eldwin’s head she was going to shoot her on the spot. But she removed an official evidence bag and Hazel knew right away what was in it and who had given it to her.

“She was wearing this the night she was killed,” Cameron said, holding out the bag with the black sweater in it. “There
are bits of wood in it, and varnish. It was all in the lab report, but they ignored it.”

“I told you to back away.”

“Why would they ignore evidence?”

“There was no lab report on the sweater, Joanne. No report and no mention of it in the inventory of documents. I saw it all just an hour ago. It showed, definitively, that your daughter drowned herself. There was no struggle, no witnesses on the island who heard any cries for help, nothing that points to anything apart from a girl who wanted to end it all. You said it yourself: she went up and down, she hoped and she despaired. It doesn’t always end well for people like Brenda, Joanne. You have to accept that.”

Cameron was smiling sadly. “There’s a lab report. It was done afterwards. But they wouldn’t reopen the case.”

Hazel hesitated a moment and then lowered the gun and put it back in the holster. She took a step toward Cameron and gently slipped out a necklace tucked into her shirt. It was a lamb dangling from a leather cord. “He couldn’t save Brenda with this,” Hazel said, looking at the talisman with a heavy heart. “What makes you think it can save you?”

“Do you have children, Detective Inspector?”

“Joanne, that has nothing –”

“He dragged
my
child across the floor.
This
floor. The varnish, the wood fragments are embedded in the sweater, not just on the surface. What really happened to Brenda is written on what she wore. I still believe you want to see it for yourself.”

Hazel took the evidence bag from Cameron, who stood in front of her with her hands at her sides, empty. Her eyes had gone flat, like someone had turned the lights off in a room, and
Hazel realized that this was it, this was as far as Cameron could come on her own and it had cost her everything.

“I’m going to call my partner now, Joanne, and he’s going to come and get us.” She held the evidence bag up between them. “And I’ll take care of this. I’ll bring it to the police lab, I’m willing to do that for you. But it’s all over now, you understand that, right?”

“Yes,” said Cameron quietly. “I do.”

“You’re going to come in and help us put an end to all of this, Joanne.”

She held her radiophone up. “I’m supposed to call at one.”

Hazel looked at her watch: it was five past. “Well, let’s not keep him waiting then. Dial his number. But I’ll do the talking.”

Cameron dialled a number and passed the device to Hazel. She held it to her ear and heard it ringing. “Joanne?” came the voice on the other end.

“Hello, Detective,” Hazel said. “Although I’m ashamed to call you that.”

“Ah,” said Dana Goodman. “How nice to hear from you.”

“Where are you?”

“That’s not important right now. I want to tell you, Detective Inspector, how pleased I am. You’ve done a good job. Now I hope you’ll finish what you’ve started.”

“I’m not doing anything while you still have Colin Eldwin. You tell us where he is, give yourself up, and I’ll do whatever I think is warranted. But right now, I have your evidence in my hands as well as your accomplice – who’s a wreck, thanks to your hard work – so how about you do what I ask before you make things worse for everyone?”

“How about,” he said, and he hemmed like he was trying to work things out, “… yes … how about you dust our friend off and send her on her way and then do what you’re told? How about that?”

“How about Joanne Cameron gives us what we need and you go fuck yourself?” She sidearmed the phone across the room. It hit the dining room wall and shattered.

“He’s not going to like that.”

“Turn around and give me your hands,” Hazel said. Cameron did as she was told, and Hazel had one cuff on when the radiophone she’d dropped when drawing her gun began to ring.

“I think that’s for you,” said Cameron.

Hazel snapped the second cuff closed and picked up the phone. Goodman said, “Please hold while I connect you to your caller.” There was an electronic buzz in the background. It repeated. Then she heard her daughter’s voice.

“Hello?” said Martha.

Hazel’s stomach flipped.

“Who is it?” repeated Martha, and then Hazel heard her own voice, replying:

“Hazel Micallef.”

“Never heard of ’er,” Martha laughed. “What are you doing in town, Hazel Micallef?”

Hazel, her limbs tingling with horror, began moving toward the door as the voice said, “I’ve got some work.” She froze in the middle of the living room.

“Well, this is a nice surprise. You going to come up?”

“Yes.”

Hazel began to shout into the radiophone:
“MARTHA! DON’T OPEN THE DOOR!”

“Come in then, you weirdo.”

“
MARTHA
!!!”

But she heard the buzz and clack of the door to Martha’s building opening. Goodman came back on the line. “Let Joanne go. She’ll call me when she’s sure she’s not being followed. I’ll wait in the lobby for two minutes, and then I’m getting into the elevator.” He disconnected and Hazel stared at the phone in her hand in disbelief.

“You don’t have long,” said Cameron. She held out her wrists.

Numb, her mind racing, Hazel got the keys and unlocked Joanne Cameron.

“I’ll call him – it’ll be okay, I promise,” said Cameron. “I don’t want any harm to come to anyone’s child, you can believe that. Just … keep going, okay? He’s serious.”

“I swear to god, I’ll kill you both.” There was a high shrill sound like the engine of a small plane swimming around the inside of her head and her heart was pounding like a fist.

“He’s getting in the elevator. I’m sorry –”

“We’re going to meet again, Joanne …”

“I know.”

Hazel watched her walk out the front door, her fists curling and uncurling as the sweat poured down the back of her collar. And then as soon as she saw her turn left toward Huron Street, Hazel burst from the house and ran as hard as she could out to Spadina Avenue without looking back. It felt like someone was clubbing her on the base of her spine. When she got to the avenue, a light rain had begun to fall and the air smelled like dust. There were no cabs, but she stepped into traffic and flashed her badge, stopping a kid in a white RAV-4. “Whaddi do?” he squeaked when she tore the passenger-side door open.

“Nothing,” she said, getting in. “You’re going to drive me to Broadview and Danforth as fast as you can.”

“What?”

“You heard me, let’s go –”

“Are you a cop?”

“Jesus Christ, has anyone in this town ever seen an OPS?”

“A what?”

“Just floor it, kid, okay? I’ll take full responsibility.”

The kid murmured
okay
and hit the accelerator. Martha’s apartment building was on the other side of town. She saw the elevator climbing in its shaft like a bullet leaving a gun.

He couldn’t have been older than seventeen and he drove like he was trying to outrun a missile. She instructed him to pause at red lights and then run them and after a couple of kilometres, the kid seemed to get into it, shooting her wry looks of excitement. “Are we tailing someone?”

“Yeah. Go faster.”

“Am I gonna get on the news?” He shot a red, swerving around a left-turning truck, which honked furiously at them.

“Only if you kill us. You know any shortcuts?”

“Um – I don’t really –”

“You don’t have your licence, do you?”

“I have my G2.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have someone in the car with you when you drive?”

“Um, I have you.”

“Right. Excellent.” They were barrelling along Bloor Street, crossing Sherbourne. She raised Wingate on the radio.

“I was wondering when I was going to hear from you. What happened at the house?”

“I can’t talk right now. You need to get to 1840 Broadview.”

“What?”

“Just get in the car!” She disconnected. The kid didn’t wait for her signal to run the light at Parliament and the rear of the RAV-4 fishtailed a little. She gripped the handle above the door.

“Too fast?”

“No, but watch the traffic coming off the Don Valley Parkway.”

“Man, are we going on the parkway? That’s awesome!”

“We’re not.”

“Oh, so, like you’re drawing the line at the frikking parkway?”

“Watch your mouth. Stay straight.” He honked going through the light at Castle Frank and a gaggle of teenagers crossing the road from Rosedale Heights Secondary School flew apart.

“I hope one of them filmed that,” the kid said.

“Keep your eyes forward,” she said as they crossed the Bloor Street Viaduct. She’d flagged this car seven minutes ago. The kid could drive. “Turn right at Broadview.”

He did and she directed him to Martha’s apartment building, shouting to him to stop when he got there. When she threw the door open, he said, “Hey, you want me to wait?”

“No, I want you to go home. Slowly. And don’t break the law again.”

“Don’t forget your damn sweater,” the kid said, holding the evidence bag out to her. She took it and slammed the door and ran toward the building. The drops of May rain still held a hint
of shivery cold in them, or maybe it was the anxiety driving all the blood to her extremities as she traced her finger on the callboard down to the Ps. She buzzed Martha’s apartment and then waited with her heart slamming itself against her ribs. There was no answer and she buzzed again, her breath shallow in her chest, the knuckle of her index finger turning bright yellow against the button, and she unsnapped her holster. She was going to have to blow the electro-maglock open. “Damn it, answer your door, Baby, just answer it!”

She stepped back, levelled the gun at the door, and took the safety off. “Christ,” she muttered as she began to squeeze the trigger. Behind the door, in the dim light of the lobby, she saw one of the elevators open and she raised the muzzle to the widening space. Then she saw it was Martha. Alone. Hazel hurriedly put the weapon back and tried to put a smile on her face. Martha opened the door with a bemused expression, an expression that told Hazel nothing untoward had happened. “Where the hell did you go?” she asked.

“I’m an idiot,” her mother said breathlessly. “I forgot which apartment was yours.”