The Taken (7 page)

He got up and moved the chair over and sat down again, this time facing her at the side of the tub. He looked sad and amused all at once. He picked the plate off the tray and held it balanced against the rim of the tub as she plucked one of the ribs out of its sauce. The meat fell apart in her mouth. He said nothing as she ate, his eyes unfocussed on her, but she knew he saw her, although she had no idea what the sight of her meant
to him now. Her once-beloved body. She finished the rib, put it on the plate, and rinsed her fingertips in the water.

“You’re going to smell like barbecue sauce when you get out of there.”

“Better than how I smelled before. You could get an onion and a handful of carrots and toss them into the water. Make enough soup for the weekend.”

“What a vile image.”

“Isn’t it.”

He held out another rib. There was rice and creamed spinach on the plate, but all she wanted was the meat. Maybe protein would cure her, she thought. He picked up a rib as well and started absently chewing on it. Finally they were sharing a meal. She had to smile.

“You’re an impossible woman,” he said. “You must know that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re going to end up chained to a bed with the nurses avoiding you.”

“A fitting end to the mess I’m making of my life.”

“Now, now,” he said. “Self-pity doesn’t suit you.”

“But I’m good at it.”

He put a bone down on the plate and leaned forward to dip his fingers into the bathwater. “Listen. You’ve raised two beautiful girls, you’re a good daughter, and you’re a beloved member of an important public institution. People count on you. They admire you and they care for you. No one but you thinks you’ve made a mess of your life.”

“You do.”

“You gave me thirty wonderful years.”

“We were married for thirty-six, Andrew.”

“I know.”

“God,”
she muttered, and she shook her head. He laughed. “Stop eating my supper.”

He passed her the last rib and she pushed herself forward in the bath and leaned down to expose her back to him. “You might as well make yourself useful.”

“No,” he said, and he stood, pushing the chair back toward the door. “I’ve done my duty.”

“Just wash my back, Andrew. Then you can go.”

“Feeding my naked ex-wife in the bathtub while my new wife and my ex-mother-in-law are upstairs watching
Wheel of Fortune
is about as much poor judgment as I’m prepared to exercise in one night. I’ll send Emily down.”

“It’s fine,” she said, and she dropped the stripped bone into the water. It floated on the surface. Seeing it there, she thought of what they’d pulled out of the lake. “Just sit down for another minute. Make sure I can get out.” She heard him pull the chair back behind the bathtub. “So did you hear about my day?”

“I heard you went in to work. That’s good news.”

“It’s the only good news from the day. We had a report of a body in Gannon Lake, you know.”

“You’re kidding me. Who was it?”

“Have you been reading the story in the
Record
?”

“I skimmed it.”

She pushed the bone along the surface. The dark sauce bloomed off it and stained the water pink. “They find a headless body in the story.”

“You found a headless body in the lake?”

“Not quite. A headless mannequin. She was missing her hands and feet, too.”

“That’s a bit of a strange coincidence,” he said. She heard the washcloth dip into the water behind her.

“There’s more.”

“Are you supposed to be telling me this?”

“There was a web address on the mannequin, if you can believe that. We went to the site and there’s some kind of feed, you know, like a video feed from somewhere. A room. Looks empty, but then you see a sliver of a person. Sitting in a chair. He seems to be staring at the camera.”

“That’s creepy.”

“As fuck,” she said. “What does it sound like to you?”

“Uhh,” he said, “a riddle wrapped in an enigma?”

“You’re a puzzle fan, Andrew. Does it make you think of anything?”

“It makes me think you should get some computer expert in and figure out where the upload is coming from.”

“Thanks, Sherlock.”

“Is there anyone in town missing a mannequin?” The cloth paused at her lower back. He’d seen the stitches below the waterline. “Goddamnit.”

“You thought I was faking?”

“No … but. I’m not going to touch it.”

“The skin doesn’t hurt, Andrew. It hurts inside.”

“Jesus,” he said quietly. “They really opened you up.” She felt the cloth move in a slow circle above her stitches. She pictured pulses of energy coming through the cloth from his hand and passing deep into her spine. Cleansing and healing her. She closed her eyes. His hand moved slowly along her lower back.

“Ah,” said Glynnis from behind them. “I was wondering where you’d gone.”

Andrew dropped the cloth into the water and reached for the towel on the rack to dry his hands. Hazel turned to look at Glynnis leaning against the doorframe.

“She got herself into the bath,” he said. “We ended up talking.”

“I can see that. You want me to take over?” “I’m fine,” he said.

“I’m not a wayward pet,” said Hazel. “I can handle myself.” She tried to lever herself out of the water and failed.

Andrew was unhurriedly arranging the dinner things back on the tray. He held it out to Glynnis. “I’ll be back up in ten minutes.”

Glynnis took the tray. Hazel couldn’t tell if she was furious or uninterested in the scene she’d come upon. “Are we all going to have a fight now?” she asked.

“Is that what you want?” said Glynnis.

“I’m just asking.”

“Why would I be upset to see that my husband has the capacity to care for another human being? Even one who broke his heart?”

Andrew had stood. “Just go on back up, love.”

“There’s tea,” said Glynnis, and she turned with the tray and left.

Hazel had managed herself to a bent-over standing position. She was staring at the place where the spectre of Andrew’s wife had appeared. “Jesus,” she said. “She’s either amazing or terrifying.”

Andrew draped a large blue towel over her shoulders and put his hand under her elbow. She accepted his aid, putting her weight on him as she stepped out of the tub. The hot water had loosened things considerably, almost as well as the painkillers did. “She can be both,” he said, leading her out of the bathroom. They slowly crossed the room and she sat on the bed. “Where are your night things?”

She pointed at the dresser that doubled as a sidetable. She watched him go through her things, his touch light, and she could feel his hand on her again. “Did I break your heart, Andrew?” He laid her warmest things on the bed. “I thought it was my heart that was broken. Maybe she’s confusing us.” He didn’t say anything and she reached out and grabbed his wrist.

“Did I?”

He looked down to where her fingers had encircled him. She saw him mark her naked wedding-ring finger. Had he never noticed the ring was gone? Why would she still be wearing it? “Yes,” he said. “Of course you did.” He loosed himself from her hand and ran his palm absently against his chest.

The body hung in the water like a closed fist. Dale held on to the railing, his fingers cold on the metal, and listened to himself breathing. His son was sitting on the cooler behind him, his head in his hands. Gus had thrown up three times after they realized what they’d found in the water. Some bonding experience, Dale thought. This lake was poisoned forever for them now.

He’d secured the body to the side of the boat by tying a rope to the ankle. To do this, he’d had to dangle over the side of the boat with Gus gripping his own legs in trembling arms. Dale knew nothing about bodies, but he knew they decomposed after death, fell apart, and this body was still, despite its missing head, intact. But the water was cold, and maybe that had helped to preserve it. When his fingertips brushed up against the bottom of the corpse’s foot, it had been as if a wave of electricity shot through him. He thought he’d light up like a fluorescent tube.

“Okay,” he said, sitting against the gunwale and panting for
breath as his son puked onto the deck beside him. He laid the hand that hadn’t touched the body against Gus’s back. He felt like the other hand would never be clean again. He had the urge to cut it off and throw it away so it could not reproach him with what it knew. “It’s okay. We’ll calm down and we’ll call the police.”

“Aw Jesus. Jesus Christ,” sobbed Gus. He threw up again. “Who would do such a thing?”

“It’s not our job to figure it out,” said Dale, his hand moving in slow circles against his son’s back. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

He helped Gus to his feet and sat him gingerly on the cooler. He took out his cell and saw he could still get a faint signal on it. He dialled a number and spoke to someone, keeping one eye on Gus to make sure the kid didn’t faint. He folded the cell and put it back into his pocket. “Someone’ll be here soon,” he said. “We just have to keep it together until then.”

Gus nodded, his eyes locked to the decking. Dale stood against the railing, looking out over the water and trying not to look down at what was secured against the hull, that sad, wrecked form.

A half-hour later, the two of them hadn’t moved from their positions, both of them lost in their thoughts. The sun was pouring down its light from a sharp angle, and Dale had to pull his cap down over his forehead to keep his eyes from watering. He heard the boat first before he saw it, and then, coming around the point of one of the larger islands, it turned on a direct heading toward them. Gus stood up. “Jesus, that felt like it took two hours.”

Dale dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out his car keys. “Listen to me, Gus. You can get the boat back to the dock, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to go with this guy, okay? Answer some questions if they need me to. There’s no reason for you to get mixed up in this.”

“I’m not leaving you, Dad.”

“And then you get in the car and go home and you tell your mother I went to the Super C to get lemons, okay? I’ll be home after lunch.”

The approaching boat had cut its motor and the driver was angling the wheel to pull up sideways against them. The boat moved in a slow, unnatural skid toward them. The man in the boat wasn’t in uniform. “What’s going on, Dad?”

Dale took his son by the shoulders. “I want you to trust me. Tell me you trust me.”

“I do.”

“Can you get the boat back and then get home?” Gus was looking over his shoulder at the man standing in the other boat. Dale put his hand under his son’s chin and tenderly brought his attention back to him. “Gus?”

“Yeah.”

“I know you wish you never saw this, but I have to do the right thing, and you’ve got no place in it, do you understand?”

“No. But I’ll do what you tell me to if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want.” He released his boy and then stepped to the railing and put his foot on it. The man in the other boat held his hand out, and Dale gripped it and leapt the space between the two crafts. “Hand me the other end of that rope, Gus,” he said, and his son untied the rope where they’d secured it to the railing. Dale caught it and began to draw it in, hand over hand. The body bobbed in the water and then sank a little under the weight of being dragged. The other man leaned over, bracing his knees against the gunwale of his boat, and gripped the arm furthest away from him, and the two men began to lift the inert form into the other boat. And as it came out of the water, resisting them, magnetized to its resting place, Gus saw the corpse turning and his heart seized in his chest. It was a woman.

“Go!” said Dale, and Gus started from his staring and turned the key in the ignition. He pushed the throttle and the boat curved away from the scene in a wide circle.

The body was almost in the boat. “Where’s your truck?” Dale asked the other man.

“It’s backed up against the dock.”

“Anyone there?”

“We’ll be sure before we tie up.”

The other man put his boat in drive again, and headed back in the direction he’d come in. Dale sat in one of the leather seats, his eyes locked to the heartbreaking form, and for the first time, he wept. Even without her eyes to look emptily on him, it was as if her entire body could see him.

When they came around into the island’s lee, the shore seemed quiet, and they went directly to the dock. The other man backed his truck down as far as it was safe, and the two of them wrapped the body in a tarp and hefted it together into the flatbed. They drove the short distance to town and down into its streets. “There,” said Dale, pointing at one of the pretty gabled houses in the middle of the street. “Pull into that driveway.”

They parked under the big willow. Its feathery flowers had gone to seed and a carpet of soft catkins lay on the asphalt. “He’s done well for himself,” said Dale. The garden was well kept, with rare trees and a small burbling fountain in the bend of a serpentine flagstone path that led to the door. They lifted the corpse out of the back of the truck and carried it down the path and laid it on the broad granite step in front of a heavy oak door. Dale took a note out of his breast pocket and, with a fishhook, attached it to the tarp. Then he rang the doorbell and the two men walked in a leisurely fashion back down the path.
“What the good goddamn?” said Hazel Micallef. Wingate was looking at his copy and held his finger up. He was a slower reader. He was sitting across from her in her office, the first time she’d tried to occupy that chair since the end of March. She realized, a little surprised by the thought, that she was finally on the uptick. After a minute, Wingate laid the newspaper against her desktop.

“I didn’t see that coming,” he said.

“Is this Eldwin character back yet? I want him in here, like now.”

“I did try him again, this morning, but his wife doesn’t expect him back up until this afternoon.”

“Did she say where he went?”

“Toronto. He had meetings, she said.”

“He writes three chapters of this thing, all hell breaks loose, and he’s in meetings in the Big Smoke? Who is this guy? Call his wife back. Tell her we want to talk to him. Now.”