The Ambitious City (12 page)

MacNeice told them both in turn that the investigations had entered a quiet but productive phase, and the length of time they’d take couldn’t as yet be determined. He didn’t mention to either his suspicion that Taaraa Ghosh’s killing was just the first, nor did he refer to the cryptic rendering of a swastika punched deep into her abdomen by a knife that was almost two inches wide. To ease union pressure, he told Maybank that the mayor could send everyone back to work once the dock had been cleared of evidence. Neither caller was satisfied with his answers.

Ryan was at his computer, scanning the DVDs from Dundurn General. “You’ve got two messages, sir, from Sue-Ellen Hughes. She asked that you call her back as soon as possible and said she’ll call back again if you don’t.”

“Thank you. How are you doing?”

“I developed a crude PRA so I can scan faster.” Seeing the questioning look on MacNeice’s face, he clarified. “It’s a pattern-recognition application that picks up her details—height, skin colour, hair, even the way she walks—and flags them so I can fly through the footage and not miss anything.”

“Does it work?”

“I’ve got about thirty sequences from the fractures clinic. I went through them a second time without the app, and yes, sir, it works. I’m almost finished Fractures. I’ve got Family Practice, Maternity, the ICU, cafeteria, Emergency and parking left to do.”

“Go to the emergency ward next, and then the parking lot—but show me what you’ve found.”

“No problem. It’ll come up on that screen.” He pointed to the left monitor.

While he was waiting for the videos to appear, MacNeice looked more closely at Ryan’s setup. The monitor he was watching had a pale blue frame with fake blood splatters near the top. The far right monitor was beige, or whatever computer companies
before the Apple revolution called beige. The largest of the monitors was in the middle. It had a wide black frame with a round sticker on it, like something you’d see in a shop full of pot paraphernalia. In the middle of the sticker was
MFS
in black block letters; above it was
BEWARE
in yellow, and below,
SYNDROME
, also in yellow. The background was a swirl of purple and green, as if someone had put a Mixmaster into a bucket of grape and lime ice cream. Strip the colour away, however, and it could have been produced by the FBI.

“What’s MFS?” MacNeice asked.

“Millennium Falcon Syndrome. It’s when you stick with legacy technology because you believe nothing’s faster, more powerful or cooler. Even when it means you’re keeping it together with gum and string and cannibalized parts from dead falcons, you won’t give up. That’s MFS. Your judgment is clouded by emotion and affection—puppy love.” He stood up, reached behind the centre monitor and moved a wire to the monitor on the left. “If afflicted with this disorder, you can die—tech-wise—but if you survive, you may be declared the best tech pilot around.” He smiled, sat down and said, “I’m ready, sir. Ghosh was in the fracture clinic for only four days before she died. Here’s all of it.”

As MacNeice watched the sequences unfold, the impact her death would have on the hospital was very clear. She engaged people easily, and those she spoke to were more often than not smiling at her. Ghosh was a young woman in the thick of things, immersed in the activities of a nursing practicum. Interactions with the staff—doctors, nurses and orderlies—appeared to be cordial. Her exchanges, however brief, with patients young and old revealed a woman blessed with good humour and compassion.

“Keep going. Incidentally, the search for pattern is the basis of all scientific, psychiatric and homicide investigations.”

“I didn’t know that. Thanks, sir.”

MacNeice went back to his desk, where an insistent red light flashed on his telephone. He had recognized in his conversation with Sue-Ellen Hughes that she was quick-minded and intelligent. Had he thought about it further, he would have known she’d start putting together the pieces of their conversation and call him if he hadn’t called her. He swivelled in his chair to look at the whiteboard and the photo of Master Sergeant Hughes.

The sergeant’s eyes were focused on MacNeice—he had become that distant hill.
There’s probably a name for the phenomena
, thought MacNeice. He recalled touring London’s National Portrait Gallery with Kate, and that several paintings there had produced the same effect. He would walk back and forth, fixed on the eyes in the painting, and no matter how far he went to the left or right, the eyes appeared to be following him. He had no doubt the same would be true of Hughes, and wondered if the young man was aware of the effect when he showed up for the photo session.

He picked up the phone and called Vertesi’s cell. It rang several times before he answered.

“Yes, boss, what’s up?”

“Give me a topline on the interviews.”

“Well, to quote the head nurse in ICU”—MacNeice could hear him flipping the pages of his notebook—“Taaraa Ghosh was the finest nurse she’d seen in thirty years. That pretty much sums it up—she was a star, hard-working, resourceful … Here’s another quote: ‘a perfect nurse, with the sunniest disposition.’ Doctors loved her too. One of the maternity ward docs told me he’d spoken to her about entering med school once she’d graduated from nursing. He said she would have made a terrific pediatrician. When I asked him how she responded, he said she was willing to consider it.”

“Can Williams handle the remaining interviews on his own?”

“Phew … well, I’d say that with this shift and the people who
were willing to come in to be interviewed, we’re about halfway. Why? What do you need?”

“I want you to drive down to Tonawanda to tell the sergeant’s wife what happened to him.”

“Jesus, Mac. You mean literally?”

“She’s smart, and she isn’t likely to accept even a well-meaning obfuscation. You’ll tell her that her husband was murdered and that his body was mutilated before being encased in a concrete column and dropped in the bay.”

“Oh man!”

“But you’ll tell her that only if necessary. Start with ‘Your husband was murdered’ and that he was traced by identifying the tattoo on the back of his head. She may not want to hear more.” Though MacNeice didn’t believe that would be the case.

“Anything else?”

“Ask her about the small-calibre bullet wound to his lower back, but other than that, no. Bring back the most recent photos of him, but don’t leave until you know she has someone nearby for support. If there isn’t anyone, call me and I’ll ask the local police to send someone over. I don’t want to tell her over the phone that he’s dead.”

“If she’s so sharp, do you think I can keep the truth from her?”

“Keep the details from her at least. Just say you’re not authorized to discuss them.”

“Good, that helps. Anything else?”

“Visit Old Soldiers. Don’t engage in anything that will put you at risk—is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. When do I go?”

“Right now. I’ll call Mrs. Hughes and tell her to expect you within the next two hours. Let Montile know you’re heading out. Lock up your weapon at home before you leave.” He gave Vertesi Sue-Ellen’s address and phone number and told him not to declare
that he was a cop when he crossed the border—he was simply going down to visit old friends for the day.

MacNeice listened to Sue-Ellen’s messages before dialling her number. When they spoke, she wanted an explanation for Vertesi’s visit. When he said there were updates that were better communicated in person, her voice faltered as she asked, “What kind of updates?” He responded by saying that Vertesi would be there within two hours; following his visit, if she wanted to speak further, MacNeice would be available. He was certain it wasn’t the death of her husband she feared. After two years she would have assumed the worst, even if she denied it to friends, family and herself. But the manner of his death was so grotesque there was no easy way to tell her about it. Sending Vertesi was a long-shot attempt to get her to accept the truth without hearing it.

S
TEPPING INTO THE
Hughes house, Vertesi could see immediately how difficult keeping it all together had been. The carpet, which must have been there long before they rented the place, was frayed from the front door through to the kitchen at the back. On the door frame of the kitchen, three sets of short horizontal lines in red, blue and green marked the heights of each child. On the living room wall their wildly coloured paint and marker sketches shared space with a large reproduction of a painting of a barn on a windswept hill. There was a television that predated flat screens by at least twenty years, and the French provincial blue upholstered sofa and chairs had deflated under the onslaught of bouncing kids.

Sue-Ellen brought a tray with mugs and a teapot, milk and sugar and four chocolate-covered cookies. She went to set it down on a small circular end table covered with magazines and children’s books. Vertesi rushed to get them out of the way to make room for the tea, standing there with his arms full until finally he just set
down the pile on the floor. He settled himself in a pressback rocking chair with a knitted cushion cover as Sue-Ellen, dreading what she was about to hear, sat down and held her knees.

MacNeice had been right about her. Not long after accepting his cup of tea, Vertesi was giving her the short version of what had happened to her husband. She immediately wanted more information, and he retreated: “I’m sorry but I’m not authorized to say anything more.” For a moment her face flashed with anger, and then a deep sadness set in. Feeling awkward, he wrote MacNeice’s phone numbers on the back of his card and put it on the table. The oldest son, who looked a lot like his father, appeared at the kitchen door with the younger ones close behind. He seemed to understand what was happening and took them out into the yard to play.

Vertesi thought about what he’d told her—that her husband had been murdered and mutilated and that his body, encased in concrete, had been dumped off a wharf into Dundurn Bay. She raised her mug, but her hands were shaking so much she put it down and didn’t touch it again. Vertesi, on the other hand, welcomed the distraction; though he didn’t like tea, he helped himself to a second cup. He was also grateful to MacNeice for the question about the scar on Hughes’s lower back, as it seemed to distract her from the word
mutilated
.

“Gary was a wild kid,” she said. “At seventeen he was in a gang. On his eighteenth birthday he was leaving a convenience store when a rival gang drove by and shot him. Gary recovered, and a few months later he went down to a recruitment centre and enlisted in the army. I met him not long after that.”

The same photograph as the one on the whiteboard in Dundurn was on the mantel over the gas fireplace. Beside it were several of Hughes and the family after his discharge. She gave three of them to Vertesi.

Sue-Ellen stood in the doorway of the small white frame bungalow, holding the screen door open, all three kids around her, and staring at Vertesi as he backed out of the short dirt driveway. He waved before pulling away; the little girl was the only one to wave back. Sue-Ellen had a brother and sister-in-law nearby and had promised to call them when she’d pulled herself together. Vertesi drove off slowly, looking forward to a cold beer at Old Soldiers.

When he’d gone a few blocks, though, he pulled over and studied the photos. In one, the eldest boy, Luke, was in an above-ground pool. He was wearing a mask and snorkel and appeared above the bright blue metal rim as if he had been diving for pearls. Hughes was wearing a white T-shirt and knee-length green shorts. He had the infant Sam in his arms and appeared to be pulling Jenny, aged four or so, along the wet grass as she hugged his leg. She was laughing hysterically; her swim goggles fallen around her neck. Hughes, his hair in an army buzz cut, was looking into the camera and grinning—he seemed intensely happy. In another snapshot, Sue-Ellen and her husband were in the garden; she was on his lap in an Adirondack chair. It was sunset and both had a glass of white wine in their hands. Sue-Ellen had said it was their fifteenth anniversary.

The third image was Gary—long-haired, bare-chested—in shorts, assembling a swing. It was easy to see why he was considered a lethal weapon. His body, though not over-packed with muscle, was finely defined and highly tuned. He was applying a wrench to the swing’s A-frame support, the tattoo on his forearm clearly visible—his division’s shoulder patch, an Indian chief in a war bonnet contained in an arrowhead. Gary was wearing a wedding ring: a mate, apparently, to the one Sue-Ellen was wearing as she wiped away tears and blew her nose.

Pulling into a large, mostly empty parking lot, Vertesi circled around a pizza restaurant, a used-furniture store and a hardware
emporium and slowly drove by Old Soldiers. Three Harleys were parked outside. He chose a spot in the middle of the lot, facing the service road he assumed would take him back to the highway.

Vertesi called MacNeice and gave him an update. “I can pretty much guarantee that he wasn’t leaving that woman, as the army suggested,” he said. “She’s beautiful. And I don’t think she’s gonna believe it’s him till she sees him—though that’s just a guess.”

“If she chooses to see him, she’s owed at least that.”

He told MacNeice what she’d said about the tattoo on Hughes’s head, that he referred to it as a bar code, as if he was a commodity. He was most proud of the tattoos on his arms—his battalion crest on the right and the names of his kids and Sue-Ellen on the left. Vertesi also told MacNeice about the family photos he was bringing back, and ended by saying he was sitting outside Old Soldiers.

“Describe it to me.”

“From the outside it’s all Harleys and hurtin’ music. Other than the neon signs for Pabst and Michelob, it looks like a set for a western movie. Okay to show them the official portrait of Sergeant Hughes?”

“Yes. You’re an old friend and you lost track of Gary when he left the army. Someone told you to check Old Soldiers.”

“Will do.”

Vertesi’s visit lasted less than a half-hour. He nodded to several men sitting near the darkened window; none nodded back. Standing at the bar, he ordered a light beer and tried to open a conversation with the bartender. That didn’t go well—the man moved down to the end of the bar to talk to two men sitting on stools, smoking and drinking Jack Daniels, the bottle between them. Vertesi drank half the beer in one swallow and finished it with the second. Five minutes passed and the bartender came back, retrieving the empty glass. “One more for the road?” he asked. Vertesi took the question to mean that he should leave, but he ordered another. When the
bartender put down the beer, he showed him the photo of Hughes. “Know him?” The man made a show of studying the image before saying “Nope.”