The Calling (15 page)

Wingate watched her pacing the room, her
hands suddenly alive. She shook them as if there
were water on her fingers. She still had not
answered his question about the photo, so he came
at it from another angle. 'Miss Atlookan, I'm sorry
I've upset you. Your father's death has been hard
enough on you, but may I please ask you one more
thing?'

She stopped in the middle of the room, stranded
in her worry and grief.

'Did you see your father's body?' Wingate asked.

'My God,' said Joe, 'is that really necessary to ask
her?'

'Of course I saw it. I found him.'

He proceeded carefully. 'It must have been
awful.'

'It
was
awful. There was blood everywhere. On
the walls. On the ceiling.'

'I'm sorry you had to see that,' he said. 'It's not
the kind of thing anyone who loves a person should
ever see.' In the back of his mind, he wondered
how many people's blood must have been dripping
from the old man's ceiling. He watched some of the
tension draining from her body. She would cry any
moment now. He went to her. 'Wineva,' he said, 'if
there's anything else you think I should know,
please do tell me.'

She shot a glance at her cousin and then brought
her face back around to Wingate. 'He was
singing
,'
she said in a low, dread-filled voice. 'There was no
sound, but his lips ... he was singing when he
died.'

And then she shook as if she were freezing cold
and burst into helpless tears.

'He's posing as a healer!' he shouted over the sound
of the rain. He was standing between the beds in
the hotel back in Red Deer, the phone pressed to
his cheek. 'He's somehow making contact with
people who are terminally ill and then visiting
them, perhaps with a promise of a cure. Then he's
murdering them.'

Hazel listened carefully on the other end of the
line. She pictured her young detective jumping up
and down in a hotel room. 'Are there any crimescene
pictures?'

'I still don't know. I couldn't get a straight
answer out of anyone. But this is our guy for
sure. He did his thing with the mouth – the
victim's daughter showed me what it looked like.'

'How?'

'She drew a couple pictures for me in my notebook.
The shape of her father's mouth. And she
tried to draw her father's visitor, but she didn't see
a face. Just drew a man in a black coat. She said her
father was
singing
– his mouth was pursed like he
was hooting or something, but obviously whatever
he was doing, it fits the Belladonna's MO. And it
supports your theory that he destroyed Michael
Ulmer's mouth because he thought there was a
possibility someone would link that killing to Delia
Chandler's. So I agree with you. The mouths are
the most important thing here.'

'You have to get some pictures, James. Did you
talk to the band police?'

'I didn't. I got in through the back door, as it was.
But the guy I met here, I think he might be willing
to talk to the band detachment for me.'

'Find out,' Hazel said. She finished writing her
notes. 'Well, now here's our big question: how is he
finding these people?'

'Or how are they finding him?'

She thought about it for a moment. 'That's good,
James. They might be seeking him out. Let's put
that into the mix when you return and we'll see
what we come up with. Call your contact and find
some pictures, then get back into your little
airplane.'

'It's coming down here in buckets, Inspector.
And it's getting dark. It
is
dark.'

'It's the rain, James. If your pilot says you can fly,
then you're going to have to suck it up. We need
you home and ready to go first thing tomorrow.'

He hung up and sat on the bed. The rain was a
grey curtain beyond the window; it came down
with the kind of ferocity he associated with the
countryside, as if the man-made obstacles in cities
somehow broke up storms like this and reduced
them to a simulacrum of bad weather. Here it was
awesome; it felt as if the lightning could pierce the
building and pick him out of his supposed safety.

This thought led somewhere painful for him,
and he pushed himself off the bed. There were
many presumed sanctuaries in one's life, and none
of them were completely impermeable. He'd
learned this and he'd come to think that this lesson
was one that delivered you into permanent adulthood.
It could turn you cynical if you let it. He
hadn't let it, this far.

The phone rang again, and he ran his palm
upward against his cheek and picked it up. It was
Brenna, the fun-loving pilot. He braced himself for
the news that the flight home was going to be an
adventure
. He was sure she was going to use that
word. But she surprised him by telling him that not
even sparrows could take off in this weather. They
were grounded, and would he like to have dinner
downstairs in an hour? He gratefully agreed, then
called Port Dundas again to give them the bad
news that he wouldn't be home on time after all.

She was wearing a red dress. Why had she packed
a red dress for what she surely presumed was going
to be a single-day gig? She stood up when he came
in and shook his hand. The waiter came by with
two whiskey sours. 'Sorry,' she said. 'I decided the
first round was on me, so I ordered something I
like. You can pick next.'

'That's great,' he said, holding his drink out to
her. They clinked glasses smartly. 'To the weather.'

'Absolutely!' she said. She threw most of the
drink back without grimacing.

They ordered hamburgers with cheddar and
bacon and had seconds of whiskey sours, and James
felt pleased to have landed here, with this woman
who turned out to be better company on the
ground than in the air. She was a merry creature,
twice divorced, the last time, he learned, from a
man who couldn't take all her energy, as she
put it. 'I'm a handful,' she said, spearing a french
fry from his plate. 'You have to keep up with me.'

'I can see that,' he said. She held her empty glass
up to the waiter. Wingate tried to refuse a third
drink.

'You're not on duty, Noah's building another ark,
and it's rude to let a woman drink alone. So you'll
have that third sour, young man.'

'Can I have a beer?' he said, laughing.

'Oh, would you like a
light
beer, you boy scout?
You're a frigging policeman, James! Now stop
wriggling, or I'll order you a double.'

She told him about the little town she lived in
now – it wasn't all that far from Port Dundas.
Apparently, the age of the average citizen was 108.
She was the company's only female pilot and,
as she put it, the only upward mobility possible was
on takeoff. Otherwise, she was stuck. 'It's a good
job,' she said, 'although I've always dreamed of flying
jets. But listen to me, yammering. You must
have had an interesting day.'

He tried to negotiate her interest wisely; he
already knew she wasn't the kind of person to be
put off with vagueness. He made up something
one-quarter true and she did some nodding, pushing
the ice around in her drink with her forefinger.
Then, when he was in the middle of connecting
the true detail about the caribou stew with
something he made up about looking to recruit a
new officer for M'njikaning, she interrupted him
and said, 'Whaddya say we continue this conversation
somewhere else?'

He smiled at her, then the smile went away, and
then he tried to put it back on and failed. He
centred his water glass at the top of his plate.

'Come on now,' she said. 'Don't go all Opie on
me, officer.'

'I'm sorry, Brenna, I can't.'

'You're off-duty, aren't you?'

'I am,' he said.

'So you can't, or you don't want to?'

'If I could, I'd be honoured. But I can't.'

She considered him for a moment with the
knowing look of an experienced dater. 'That can
only mean one of two things, Detective. Either
you're married or you're gay. Or both. Both is a
possibility.' She watched him carefully for a reaction.
He said nothing. Her eyebrows went up.
'Not both,' she said. 'And not married.'

'I'm sorry,' he said.

'So ... you're invited to dinner in the middle of
nowhere by a fairly attractive woman who shows
up in a red dress. What about that is unclear to
you? You don't have three whiskey sours with me
and a meal and then announce you don't play on
my team. You walk in, see the girl in the red
dress and you say, "I hear the banquet burgers here
are great and by the way, I don't sleep with
women".'

'Can you please keep your voice down?'

'Or you could have sent back the whiskey sour
and ordered a white wine spritzer instead. That
would have done it.'

He laughed despite the look on her face, or
maybe because of it. Her mouth was twisted up in
a ferocious scowl. 'I had no idea what was going on,
Brenna, honest.'

'But you're a
detective
.'

'There's no crime here.'

'I disagree. Look at you. You're yummy. And
you're afraid of flying, how sexy is that? I'd been
praying for rain all afternoon just so I'd have the
chance to invite you to dinner, get you drunk, and
see if you wear boxers or briefs. Now that I know
you're gay—'

'Please,' he said in a stage whisper.

'—I'm guessing briefs.'

He reached over and grabbed her hand, figuring
it was going to be the best way to quiet her down.
He didn't realize until that moment that he was
drunk: his hand punched her water glass clear off
the table. It crashed to the ground and shattered.
'Brenna, please. You can fly loop-the-loops tomorrow.
Just let me off the hook.'

She looked at him, shaking her head slowly. Her
long brown hair fell over her mouth. 'Your secret's
safe with me.'

'It's not a secret. Not in general.'

'Well, it's still safe,' she said. 'Although if you
were a
real
gentleman ...' He squeezed her hand,
just a little too hard. 'Okay,' she said.

Wednesday 17 November, 9:15 a.m.

Ray Greene walked in through the front door of
the station house, stopped, looked around, and for
a moment thought he was in the wrong place.
Almost every desk in the pen was full; there had to
be an additional fifteen officers with their heads
down, phones cradled against their shoulders, or
their eyes fixed on a glowing screen. Detective
Inspector Micallef came out of her office and saw
him standing there, transfixed by the activity. She
came down and held the gate open for him. 'We're
a secondment factory now, Ray. If Ian Mason isn't
going to send me what I need, I'll beg, borrow and
steal it. Come meet some of the troops.'

He went through, still shaking his head. She
pointed out rough clusters of new staff. 'These folks
are from Mayfair – they're on police frequencies
and scanners from here to St John's.' She turned
him by the elbow and pulled him toward two tables
that had been pushed together. There were six
officers arrayed around it. 'These folks are calling
every town in this country with a population of less
than fifteen thousand and making inquiries about
unsolved murders in the last eight weeks.'

'Nice gig,' Greene said to the officers. 'Welcome
to the big time.' Hazel led him to the back of the
pen, and they stood there looking at the buzz of
activity. 'Someone should tell Mason that for what
it's going to cost him in unwritten parking tickets
in Mayfair, he could have given us one good man
for two weeks.'

'Would you really try to talk that kind of sense to
Ian Mason?'

'If I thought I had a chance ...'

'You think it's bad having him for commander?
Wait until he runs for premier. We'll be fighting
the bad guys with wooden swords.'

Greene laughed. 'Until then, why don't we focus
on the task at hand.'

'Let's go in the back.'

In Hazel's office, Greene produced an old folding
map with the logo of a local gas station on it. He
opened it and tried to smooth it down on her desk.
There were small, round yellow stickers on the
towns of Gimli, Pikangikum, Port Dundas and
Chamberlain. Then he'd put little blue dots on a
series of towns to the east of Chamberlain, and red
dots to the west of Gimli. 'I did some math.
Chandler and Ulmer break a pattern, like we're
saying, but we're still talking four if not five
murders between the towns of Gimli and
Chamberlain in ten days. That's two thousand
kilometres, or a killing about every four to five
hundred kilometres.'

'There better not be any cube roots here,
Ray.'

He put his finger on the map. 'These red dots
show distances from Gimli westward to the most
distant part of Vancouver Island. It represents over
three thousand kilometres. There could be at least
eight more bodies.'

'We're up to sixteen according to our lab results.
Maximum five, let's say, between Gimli and
Chamberlain, plus your eight, only gets us to
thirteen. So you're missing three dots on this half
of the map. And what about these—' She counted
the blue stickers heading east. 'Six more?'

'If he's doing the same math, at least.'

Hazel Micallef leaned on her forearms against
the edge of the desk. 'So twenty-two victims. At
least. Sixteen of whom he's already killed. And all
these little dots are what? Four hundred and fifty
kilometres apart?'

He turned the map to face himself. 'I accounted
for proximity to large centres and factored in how
accessible these towns are. They're best guesses.'

'He got into Pikangikum.'

'I know.'

She stared at the map another moment and then
pushed herself upright. 'Okay, let's get back out
there.' She swept the map off the desk and he
followed her into the pen. The sound of the map
crackling caused a general raising of heads. 'Listen
up people,' Hazel said, 'we're trying to narrow down
likely landing spots for our man.' She spiked the
map on the back wall of the pen. 'Any of you
assigned to calling small municipalities west and
north of Gimli, Manitoba, start consulting this
map. Start calling the red dots and then move out
in a spiral from them. We're looking for at least
eight more victims now.' The six men and women
at the desk near the back stood up nearly in unison.
'I want results, people. Five dead bodies – minimum
– by the end of today.' She turned to Ray.
'You and I are going to hole up in my office and call
the blue dots until we find our next victim.'

They were about to close the door when one of
their own, PC Windemere, put her hand against it.
'Sorry,' she said, pushing a stray hair back up under
her cap. 'I was assigned to electronic bulletins. I
found something I think you're going to want to
look at.'

'Where?'

'Eastern border of Quebec.'

Now Cartwright was standing in the doorway
too. 'And I have Mason for you on line one.'

Ray and Hazel traded a look. 'Everything's heating
up all at once, huh?' she said.

She shook his hand and passed him his pack. 'Nice
flying with you, sailor,' she said and winked at him.

The solid ground beneath him felt slightly unstable.
They'd flown clear blue skies, but the entire
way it had seemed to him that the air was full of
invisible medicine balls, buffeting the tiny craft.

'I guess I don't have to say "call me".'

'Don't take it personally.'

'Is it about my airplane or my X chromosome?'

He smiled for her and hoisted his pack over his
shoulder. There was a payphone beside the hangar
and he called the station from it. 'Find a chair,' said
Ray Greene. 'We're sending you a Frenchman.'

'Just what I need,' said Wingate.

'Hard day, James? Wait till you get back here.'

'Who's the Frenchman?'

'A gift from Commander Mason. Son-of-a-bitch
actually came through. The French guy's a
detective out of Sudbury. Name's Sevigny.'

'How long do we have him?'

'Skip didn't say. He should be to you in about an
hour.'

Wingate hung up and watched Brenna circle on
the tarmac and take off for some point west. The
craft shrank against the clear sky in an agonizing
slow fade. Wingate hadn't been propositioned by a
member of either sex in well over seven years. For
the last five, it would have been entirely unwelcome,
but even now, he wondered if he'd know
what to do if someone eligible came along. He told
himself to view Brenna's invitation as a form of
kindness, but instead he felt troubled by the fact
that someone had found him out. Not his sexuality,
but just him. He'd had to act like a person for a few
moments, rather than the Job. His uniform and
badge could stand in for a lot if he wanted them to.
He could even mask a personal reaction with these
trappings, as he had with the young Joe Atlookan.
It was possible that Joe was accepted for who he
was on the reservation, but then again, maybe no
one knew. When Atlookan had pushed the bread
basket toward him that second time and looked
him in the eyes, Wingate's suspicions were
confirmed. It had made Brenna's advances seem
even sadder. What a lonesome night it had been.

Wingate stayed lost in these thoughts for
another half-hour, his mind turning down into the
dark cul-de-sac where the worst memories were,
and when he was next aware of the outside world,
it was because a plane identical to Brenna's was
touching down. For a moment, he worried it was
Brenna herself, come back to take another crack at
him, but a towering man came out of the plane,
stooped over. 'Detective Sergeant Sevigny?' he
asked.

'Se-vin-yee,' said the man, offering his hand.

'Welcome to the Port Dundas Police.'

The man almost didn't fit in the car – his knees
pressed up against the glove compartment. It was as
if Wingate had bagged a moose and instead of tying
it to the grille, he'd put it in the passenger seat.
There was very little conversation on the way;
Sevigny told him only that if he never saw Sudbury
again it would be fine with him. 'A toilet', is what
he said. He sat in the passenger seat with a neat
pile of folders on his lap, details of the case had
already been faxed to him. Wingate was tempted to
try his French – he'd been nearly fluent by grade
eleven – but he intuited that the behemoth in his
passenger seat probably wasn't going to be interested
in a Berlitz moment.

They got into Port Dundas at two in the afternoon.
Driving down the main street, it felt to
James as if he'd been away for a month. He'd only
been in the town for four days, but his relief made
him feel like he was coming home. The station
house was overflowing with men and women on
phones. Ray Greene waved off his questions: all
would be explained. There was a kind of
neighbourliness to the whole place, Wingate
thought, like it had been transformed into some
kind of telethon headquarters. There was a map at
the back of the room, and beside the map a white
board had a series of place names written on it. He
read
Milk River
,
Grimshaw
and
Quesnel
before he
had to catch up with Greene and the French
officer. DI Micallef was waiting in one of the meeting
rooms. There was a laptop in front of her. She
turned the screen to Sevigny. There was a picture
on it of a sickly looking woman with blood all over
her face. It was a frontal view, and Wingate could
see the wooden handle of a hammer sticking up
behind her head. The woman's mouth was cast in a
huge, thin grimace. 'Her name is Gladys
Iagnemma. The daughter – Cecilia – spoke to her
this morning in anticipation of seeing her with a
friend of hers. When she went over, this is what she
found. Spere is waiting in Mayfair for a courier
delivery of her clothing.'

'Although we already know what's on it,' said
Greene.

'What is that?' said Sevigny.

Hazel pulled out a chair for the man, who fit
himself into it, and she began to slowly lay out the
facts of the case as they understood them. Sevigny
was a quick study. 'This guy,' he said, 'he thinks no
one is paying attention.'

'That's right,' Hazel said.

Sevigny jerked his chin toward the door. 'Now a
lot of people are paying attention.'

Greene crossed his arms. 'We're being careful,
Detective Sergeant.'

The French policeman unfolded himself from
his chair. 'A lot of little jugs, eh?' The three others
stared at him, uncomprehending. 'Is my English so
bad? They have big ears, little jugs.'

Hazel was staring at him like he was changing
colour. 'I've never understood that saying.'

Wingate was amused to see this massive man
lose his composure a little. He held his hands up
like he was surrendering. 'The more people talking
about your case, the more ears to hear. We don't
want this man to hear anything we are saying.'

'Well, you're not saying anything yet, officer,'
said Greene, and he came forward to shut the laptop
where Gladys Iagnemma's face continued to
leer out at them. 'You're getting caught up, then
you're pitching in, and then you're going home.'

'I'm not going anywhere,' said Sevigny, and he
took a tiny step forward, toward Ray Greene.
Greene instinctively stepped back before he could
tell himself to stand his ground.

'Boys?' said Hazel, and Sevigny thrust his hand
out toward Greene. Everyone flinched.

'Detective Sergeant Adjutor Sevigny,' he said. 'I
will be at your service until I decide I am no longer
needed.'

'What the hell's an "adjutor"?' said Greene,
refusing the man's hand. Sevigny kept it out.

'That is my name, Raymond,' he said. 'Now
shake my hand, and let us all work together.'

Hazel Micallef sat alone at the back of The
Laughing Crow, toying with the plastic swizzle stick
in her bourbon. This was Andrew's local, and she'd
deliberately chosen a table near the back where she
would not be seen by any of his colleagues. But it
entailed turning around in her chair in an obvious
manner to see if he'd come in and failed to see her.
Twenty minutes after the time he'd agreed to meet
her she was still sitting alone. The bartender leaned
over the bar to hand her a second bourbon. 'You can
sit at the bar with me, Chief,' he said, gesturing to the
countertop. 'I can keep 'em coming.'

'I'm waiting for someone,' she said. 'But thank
you.' She wondered if he believed her, and then
decided she didn't care. If she was going to be
tonight's story, so be it. It was impossible to go for
a drink anywhere within two hundred kilometres of
Port Dundas without being spotted. In uniform or
not, it was like a sign was hanging around her neck.
She pushed the ice down with her finger and at
that moment felt Andrew's hand on her shoulder.
This was one of the ways he'd touched her; that
spot on her shoulder could mould itself to his hand
from memory.

'Do you want my excuse?' he said.

'Whatever it is, I forgive you.'

'Okay,' he said, 'thanks.' He gave the bartender a
thumbs-up and then reached behind her to receive
his drink: a gin and tonic.

'Aren't you worried about the bartender across
the street stealing your signs?' she asked Andrew.

'It's just a shorthand we've developed over the
years.' He sipped his drink and held it up in front
of him. 'Thumbs-up is this, anything else, I have to
go up and order.'

'I don't know if I'm relieved or sickened,' she said.

'I come here almost every day after work, Hazel.
There's nothing sinister about it.'

'With Glynnis?'

'With my wife? Yes, Hazel. I go out for a drink
with my wife quite frequently.'

She reached across the table and put her hand
on his. 'Please don't,' she said. 'I didn't mean to
start anything.'

He gave her a soft look, but pulled his hand away
out from under hers. 'Okay. Meter's reset. Let's
toast to something neutral.'