Cut to the Quick (28 page)

“You have to go to the counter to order,” Penny blurted after they'd said tentative hellos.

Penny, wide-eyed and wary, perched her tense body on the edge of the banquette. Flight was a possibility that might momentarily become a reality. Caution would be the watchword. Hollis rejoined her with an Orangina bottle clutched in her hand and no idea what to say. She'd start with their phone conversation.

“You said you'd expected someone from the family to contact you?” she began.

“Ivan said he hadn't told his family about me, but I figured he would have something in his room or his wallet with my name on it.”

“I found your picture, but it was hidden.” Why had she said that? No woman wanted to learn that the man in her life had hidden every reference to her. But she was making assumptions. Maybe Ivan had been a casual friend.

“Hidden?”

“You know how Ivan was—he kept things from his family.”

“I do. He was afraid of his father. I felt sorry for him, but I have dragons in my own family, so I understood.”

“I didn't see your name on the culinary course student lists. I gathered from whoever answered the phone the first time I called that you attended George Brown.”

“Definitely
not
the culinary course.” Penny smiled ruefully. “Cooking was one thing I was sure I didn't want to take.” Her face crumpled, and she shook her head. “I guess you can't avoid your destiny—I'm back in the kitchen cooking up a Greek storm.” She patted her stomach. “But not for long. No, I took business, but I did meet Ivan at George Brown.”

Sure she knew the answer because of the photo's inscription, Hollis said, “You were friends.”

Tears flowed down Penny's cheeks. She swiped at them, picked up her paper napkin and mopped the flow. She opened her mouth to speak. Her face twisted. She gulped and sobbed.

Even the teenagers, self-obsessed and tied to their cell phones, stopped to peer at this noisy display of sorrow.

Hollis slid off her chair, moved to the banquette and hugged Penny, who dropped her head to Hollis's shoulder and wept. Hollis soothed and patted. This was not a friend's grief; Penny had loved Ivan.

“Is the baby Ivan's?” she murmured.

“Yes.”

“Did he know?”

Penny took a deep, shaky breath, raised her head and nodded. “We planned to get married and go to Italy while Ivan took his course.”

“Did your family know?”

“I'm so afraid,” Penny wailed.

A
hot Saturday afternoon. Rhona would have liked to take her bike on the ferry to Centre Island. An Ottawa friend had told her about the island, one of Toronto's treasures. Her first visit had hooked her, and she returned whenever she could. She loved pedalling along the tree-shaded paths watching a kaleidoscope of ethnic groups picnicking and enjoying the outdoors. This population mix was what Toronto and Canada was all about.

The fire had changed her plans. Instead of recharging her batteries, she sat behind a desk piled with paper. It was supposed to be a paperless world, but that hadn't happened, at least not in Homicide. The office hummed. Criminals didn't take weekends off. There had been yet another gang shooting in an afterhours night club. A young woman's failure to return from a shopping trip to the Dufferin Mall had sparked an all out search. In fact, Zee Zee and Rhona had lost the help of two officers who'd been moved to the missing woman's case.

Rhona shuffled paper from one pile to another. Maybe Hollis had found something new. She punched in her cell phone number.

“Anything new? Did you identify the mystery girl at the funeral?”

A pause. Rhona's antennae quivered. Silence usually meant the person was deciding whether or not to lie.

“My phone's dying—I'll call you from one that works.”

Clever evasion. Hollis knew something and didn't want to lie but didn't intend to share the information. Rhona waited for the phone to ring. It did.

“Simpson.”

“It's Zee Zee. I have the warrant for Allie Jones's house. I'll be back in a few minutes.”

Rhona waited ten minutes, but her phone didn't ring again. She called Hartman's house. Hollis had gone out.

Frank approached her desk. “Just the woman I want to see. Come into my office.” He led the way.

“This case is bogging down. Murder. Arson and attempted murder. No suspects. Give me a rundown of the avenues you've explored.”

Rhona explained what they'd done. Frank suggested other options. They tried thinking outside the box. Hollis glanced at her watch. Six thirty. Opie wouldn't be too happy. Nor was she—breakfast had been a long time ago. Two coffees and one bottle of water had left a void.

Frank's phone rang. “At the Hartmans'? I thought we had surveillance there.”

“What is it? What's happened?” Rhona said.

* * *

“Second place, they came second.” Etienne announced to Hollis late on Saturday afternoon as she joined the family in the garden. David and Tomas, windblown and smiling, lounged at the glass-topped table. Their nearly empty Molson beer bottles had left a multitude of wet rings. Etienne stood between them. All three dipped into a large bag of lime flavoured tortilla chips. Manon and Curt lay stretched out on chaise lounges.

“Great to sail again,” David said to Hollis.

“And he's good,” Tomas said. “We've made the quarterfinals. We'll practise on Tuesday evening.”

Curt raised his diet drink can. “To the winners. I've been dethroned—Tomas and I haven't won anything for months.”

“Dethroned? The king loses his crown in a coup and goes into exile. Isn't your analogy a little overdramatic?” Manon said.

Curt frowned. “Manon, don't criticize everything I say. It was a metaphorical remark.”

Not again. The way they picked at each other kept everyone on edge.

“You do have a talent for self-aggrandizement, but never mind. It's time to eat. You'll stay and have supper with us?” Manon said to David.

“Love to.”

They rose, collected bottles and glasses, and moved to the kitchen, where Hollis helped Manon set out the food. Settled at the table, they passed platters and loaded their plates. The conversation was desultory until the doorbell rang.

“I'll go. It's probably Bobby. We have a new sponsor, Cleanway Window Washers. They're giving us baseball shirts with their company's name on them.” Etienne pushed his chair back and headed for the front door.

A thumping bang. The house shook.

For a brief moment, the group around the table froze like figures in a waxworks display.

Manon sprang from her chair and raced from the room. The others were right behind her.

“Oh no,
mon dieu,
not Etienne,” she screamed.

E
tienne
lay face down on the porch floor. Manon fell to her knees. Etienne lifted his head and struggled to rise.

“Don't move,” Manon said.

Hollis grabbed her cell phone.

A crater fragmented the hedge. Beyond it, a man with a mop of white curls lay face down and unmoving. His arms and legs splayed, his head pushed against a yellow fire hydrant's base, he sprawled atop a woman. A black umbrella like Arthur's stuck out of the bushes. Was it Arthur?

“A bomb's exploded.” Hollis gave 911 the address.

The woman squirmed, shoved and wriggled out from under the man's inert form. Without looking at him or anyone else, she scuttled off down the street.

Curt charged to the edge of the porch and stopped.

“If that's Arthur lying there, and he isn't already dead, I'll kill him.” Curt's quiet intensity was more terrifying than a shout.

“No, Papa, no, no,” Etienne pleaded shakily.

“What?” Curt turned to his son, who had ignored his mother's order and rolled over. Etienne levered himself to a sitting position. Manon's arms, wrapped around him, did not stop his shivering and shaking.

“No, Papa, no!”

Curt focused on Etienne.

“It was
her,
not Arthur. Arthur
yelled
at me.” Etienne's teeth chattered.

“What? Yelled what?”

Etienne stared as if Curt had asked a really stupid question. “Get away. Don't touch it.”

“And then…”

“Arthur ran to the porch—the box was on the top step. He grabbed it, threw it in the bushes and chased the lady.”

“What lady?”

Hollis ran down the steps. The woman had disappeared. They'd all stood like dummies, and she'd escaped. Hollis didn't even think she could give the police a useful description other than that she'd been middle-aged and middle-sized. But right now, Arthur needed help. Not that she could do anything medical. She ran over and stared down. He lay on his stomach, arms and legs splayed out as if he'd been dropped by a giant. No blood. His back moved slightly. He was breathing, but she knew better than to move him.

Wailing sirens drew closer.

Thank heavens. Arthur needed help. A barrage of noise. One after another, police cars, fire trucks and an emergency response vehicle screeched to a halt. Uniformed figures surrounded Arthur. Others approached the porch.

Dèja vu: fire night all over again. They were living in a nightmare. Every time life appeared to be about to return to normal, something awful happened.

Arthur hadn't moved since they'd come outside.

Hollis clutched the nearest police officer's arm. “We saw the woman who bombed the house but didn't know she'd done it until after she'd walked away.”

The officer sent a car to look for the mystery woman. But if she'd reached Parliament Street and its crowds, there was little hope they'd pick her up.

The ambulance attendants who had dealt with Arthur hurried back with the appropriate equipment and loaded him into the ambulance. Lights flashing and siren shrieking, it raced away.

More police swarmed the scene.

A female medic clumped up the porch steps and squatted beside Etienne. “Does anything hurt?” she asked.

“No, but I'm really, really cold.”

“That's shock. I'll do a quick once-over. Let me help you lie down. When we're sure it won't do any harm, we'll load you on a backboard to move you.”

“Move him where?” Manon tightened her grip on Etienne.

A police officer approached Hollis. “Was anyone outside when the blast went off?”

She pointed to Etienne. “He was.” The paramedic crouched beside Etienne looked up and said, “He needs a hospital check-up. Superficially he's okay, but concussion from the blast may have done damage we can't see.”

Manon rocked back and forth with her arms clutched against her chest.

“Since the blast didn't blow his ear drums, it probably wasn't huge. I don't think you have anything to worry about.” The medic spoke calmly. “But he must go to the hospital.”

“I'm coming with him,” Manon stated. Hollis, Curt, Tomas and David clustered on the porch while the police taped off the area. Curt moved back to lean on the wall and slowly slid to the floor. His bleached grey face and sunken eyes told his story.

“My pills,” he croaked.

“Where are they?” David said.

“In my shirt pocket or in my bathroom.”

Tomas found them in his pocket. “Two. Under my tongue,” Curt whispered.

A police officer saw what was happening and called for a third ambulance. Two other officers clomped to the porch. The first one, a man of average height and unremarkable features, spoke to them. “Can anyone give us details of the blast?”

Curt, crumpled on the floor, shook his head.

“We weren't outside. Etienne, the little boy who went to the hospital, saw it. Tomas, David or I can repeat what he told us,” Hollis said.

“First, we'll send this gentleman to the hospital. Then we'll talk.”

After Curt and Tomas had left, the younger officer removed a notebook from his pocket. “Now I'll take a statement,” he said.

“Let's go inside,” Hollis suggested.

At the kitchen table, Hollis and David repeated Etienne's story. Then they talked about Ivan,
SOHD
, Arthur and the fire. When the officer had all the information recorded in his book, he contacted the ambulance service.

“The two men are at St. Mike's. The little boy and his mother went to Sick Kids,” he said.

“I want to go to Manon and Etienne, but I don't think I should leave the house unguarded. The bomber could come back.” Hollis shrugged. “I know it's highly unlikely, and the door will be locked. Nevertheless, I feel someone should be here.”

“Not a problem. Nothing on my agenda. I'll stay with MacTee until you're back,” David said.

Hollis drove carefully—she knew shock affected your reflexes. Would Etienne have internal injuries? She dreaded what she'd find. She remembered a program about the 1917 Halifax explosion victims. Initially, many had seemed perfectly fine but died later from the effect of the concussion or whatever they called the waves generated by a blast. The paramedic had thought Etienne was okay. Presumably the hedge and veranda had protected him. But what about Arthur? He'd been in the open and subject to the full impact. And who was the woman? Had Curt suffered another heart attack, or had his collapse resulted from shock? What would this latest calamity do to Manon's fragile emotional state? Ready or not, Hollis had to ignore her feelings and be strong for the entire family.

At Sick Kids, the emergency room nurse directed her to a cubicle. A doctor wearing a non-frightening pink smock and almost young enough to be a patient tested Etienne's ears.

Manon smiled at Hollis. “He's fine. They don't think there are any ill effects.” Her eyes shone, and she continued to smile as if she'd found the “on” switch and planned to ignore the “off ” one forever. “We are
so
lucky.” She tilted her head and peered behind Hollis. “Where are Curt and Tomas?”