The Calling (6 page)

'Were they elves?'

'No.'

'They sound like elves.'

'Your seizures are a symptom, rather than the illness
itself. The mistletoe will establish a beachhead
in your nervous system and prevent the communication
of the wrong signals from your brain to your
muscles.'

'So I do have a tumour?'

'You may. If you do, the yew-berry powder I've
put in here will deal with it.' She looked at the cup
of steaming liquid in his hands, less now with fear
than with curiosity. 'Honey, then?' he said.

'Yes,' she replied. 'If I have to.'

'You don't want to have got out of bed for nothing.'
He went to the door and called down for a jar of
honey and a teaspoon. Grace came up with it.

'Have you diagnosed her?' she asked.

'Yes,' said Simon. 'She has seizures and falls over.
Leave us now.'

He poured a tiny dram of honey into the tea and
passed it to the girl. She stared at the mixture with
contempt. 'Do you know how to sing, Rose?' he
asked her. 'This is a cup of tea that tastes nicer
when you sing to it.'

Before nine, he was on his way again, having performed
his ministrations and said his blessings. The
MacDonald house was quiet when he left it. Very
peaceful, indeed.

He was less than forty kilometres from Ottawa
when he next stopped. This was Chamberlain, at
the dividing line between Renfrew and Linnet
counties. Population 2,100, said the sign. He
checked the map that he had printed off the web.
The house he was looking for appeared to be near
the centre of town. He parked in the municipal lot,
and walked with his valise to the address.

When he rang, he had to wait a long two
minutes before he heard the clunk and shuffle of
Michael Ulmer's walker coming to the door. At last
it opened, and Simon considered the kind, slack
face of his host. 'You're right on time,' said the
man. He was not yet thirty, although he had wasted
so considerably that his body was that of a man
three times his age. Simon's heart went out to him
– to have your youth stolen so brazenly by a disease,
that you should wear it on your skin like the mark
of Cain.

'I am. I'm grateful to be welcomed into your
home.'

'I'm not sure you're welcomed,' said the man.
'But you're needed. Come in.'

Simon closed the door behind him, locking it
with the chain. At eleven-thirty, he heard a knock
on the door and he froze in silence. After a minute,
he heard footsteps moving down the walk away
from the house. He went to one of the living-room
windows and pulled the curtain back slightly to see
a man in a black parka walking along the sidewalk.
He was carrying a little black kitbag, a miniature of
his own. A Jehovah's Witness, perhaps. Imagine
building a church out of whomever wanted to join
it, Simon thought. He and his brother had always
been more discriminating than that. At noon, he
searched Mr Ulmer's fridge and found a bunch of
parsley, which he moistened with the juice of a
lemon and ate. At two-thirty, Mr Ulmer was ready.
Simon photographed him and thanked him. As
luck would have it, the house was already so
immaculate – but for the faint, hanging odour of
cigarette smoke – that there was nothing for him to
do. He was pleased when he found that the ones he
visited had taken his directives seriously, although
he imagined in Mr Ulmer's case that the cleanliness
of his house was a result of hired help. Just the
same, it confirmed for him that he had not made a
mistake in choosing Mr Ulmer, or indeed any of
them, and it deepened his joy that he was there
with them to give succour, to save them. As he had
been saved in his own life. He was repaying his
debt, and it filled his heart with happiness. And for
this reason especially, his entire morning and early
afternoon, both with the MacDonalds and with Mr
Ulmer, twenty-nine, had been very agreeable
indeed.

Sunday, 14 November, 8:15 a.m.

Detective Howard Spere slapped an envelope
down on Micallef's desk. 'I
was
planning on spending
today watching football with my sons, but you
know what I do when you say jump, Hazel.'

'Yeah, Howard, you say it can wait until
Monday.'

'She's still going to be dead tomorrow.'

'And you can tape your football game.'

'You're welcome.'

She unwound the string on the back of the
envelope and pulled out the post-mortem report.
She scanned the summary. 'Hyoscyamine?
Humulene? These are drugs?'

'Sort of,' said Spere, wedging a thumbnail
between two of his front teeth. 'They're compounds
found in belladonna and hops.'

'She was drinking?'

'No ... this was medicinal hops. In plant form.
They found bits of matter in her stomach that she'd
ingested just prior to death. Both plants are
sedatives.'

'How strong?'

'In the quantity of belladonna they found in her,
probably very.'

'So you're telling me she was
anaesthetized
?'

'I'm saying she probably didn't feel a thing. She
was as high as a kite. But neither of these compounds
killed her. This did.' He put his finger on a
word at the bottom of the report.

'Amatoxin.'

'You ever heard of the destroying angel?'

'No.'

'It's a mushroom.
Amanita bisporigera
. The most
poisonous mushroom on the planet: the amount
that would cover the surface of a dime one-tenth of
a millimetre thick would be enough to kill her
three times over. It's a hepatotoxin.'

'English, Howard.'

'Shuts down the liver and kidneys almost
instantly.'

Hazel cast her eyes over the report again and her
mouth turned down. 'Are you telling me that Delia
didn't die of blood loss?'

'The amatoxin is fully metabolized. He bled her
after she was dead.'

Hazel closed the folder and sat back down in her
chair. 'How do you get the blood out of a person's
body when their heart isn't pumping it any more?'

'You suck it out.'

'Jesus, Howard. Who is this guy?'

'There's more. She'd been fasting, too. There
was nothing in the bowel, clean as a whistle. I gave
her to Jack Deacon at Mayfair Grace. He said she
probably hadn't eaten in three days.'

Hazel lifted the pages of the report, noting the
pathologist's charts with the measures, the weights of
Delia Chandler's internal organs, and she thought, it
comes down to this: the body in its constituents with
their poorly kept secrets. Only a living person can
refuse to tell the truth. Delia's heart was a little
smaller than average, she noted. She'd make sure not
to mention that to her mother.

'So she arranges with the killer in advance?' she
said, thinking out loud. 'And according to
his
instructions, she begins to fast. He arrives, prepares
this anaesthetic cocktail, and knocks her out. He
delivers the death blow with the amatoxin, then he
drains the blood from her body to remove as much
trace of the poison as possible, and then slits her
throat to make it look like a murder.'

'Because it's
not
a murder?'

'Well, at the very least it's not the murder it
appears to be, is it? A corpse with a slit throat but
the cause of death
isn't
blood loss ...'

'He tries to hide what he's done.'

'Maybe,' she said.

'You think maybe this
is
an assisted suicide?'

'No. I can't get to that.'

'So it
is
a murder. Whether he slits her throat or
not.'

'I know, Howard. But why kill her and
then
do
her violence? Why would he want it to look like he
attacked her? Maybe we come up with the profile
for a psychopath and that's what we start looking
for. But he's not a psychopath, is he? He's something
else.'

Spere had leaned back in the chair on the other
side of Hazel's desk. He stared at the ceiling. She
thought she could smell onions. 'I don't know. On
one hand, no one who
isn't
a wack-job could have
done this. But on the other, he knows what he's
doing. He's skilled enough to put her under
with two powerful sedatives and then kill her with
mushroom
powder. He drains her blood, but he's got
to know he's not covering his tracks. He knows the
Amanita
is going to turn her kidneys into raisins.
So he's in control. Maybe he
is
a doctor.' He
fell silent a second and Hazel, knowing there were
times it was wise to let Spere keep talking, waited
him out. 'Someone with an urge to kill, but he
can't do anyone who just walks into his office. He's
going to get caught that way. But he can make
arrangements—'

'—how though?'

'I don't know. But say he's promised her that he
can cure her, or maybe just relieve her pain, and she
goes for it. She doesn't know what belladonna is.
And once she's under, he has a romp. Maybe he
doesn't like to fight with them, or hear their screams.'

'I don't think so. I think she knew everything
that was going to happen to her. I think she
agreed.'

'You think she agreed to
die
?'

'She was already terminal, Howard.'

'Yeah, but no one agrees to die like this. Unless
they're as nuts as their killer.'

'No forced entry, no struggle, the place is
immaculate. Explain any of that to me.'

'So is this a murder or not, Hazel? At the very
least, can we decide what we
think
it is?'

'It's a murder. It doesn't matter what he calls it or
what she thinks she's agreed to, if she's agreed to
anything. It's what it looks like to us. Don't you
think?'

'Do you really care what I think, Hazel?'

'Yes, Howard. I care. You feel better now?'

Spere shrugged deeply – his head almost disappeared
into his shirt – and pushed his way out of
the chair. The effort triggered a fit of wet smoker's
cough. She was always glad when it was time to say
goodbye to him. He held his hand out for the
report. 'I gotta make a copy of this. I'll bring it

back.'
'Make one for Greene.' Spere shut the door
behind him, and she picked up her phone.
'Melanie? Tell Jack Deacon at Mayfair Grace I
want to see him. I'm going to drive down there
now.'

'Got it, Inspector.'

'Did you do your cougar homework?'

'I did.'

'And?'

She heard a shuffling of paper. 'Cougars or
pumas –
Puma concolor
– are large, tawny or greyish
brown carnivores—'

'Just the part I need to know, Mel.'

'Okay. They
are
indigenous to Ontario. But they
see them mostly north of here.'

'How north?'

'Two, three hundred kilometres.'

Hazel tapped her pencil tip on her blotter. Little
dashes like knife-marks appeared under the nib.
'Fine. Send two officers down to Kehoe River then,
okay? Find out who's lost their pet kitty, and make
sure Ken Lonergan behaves himself. But call

Deacon first.'
She pulled her jacket off the back of the chair
and went out into the pen. Greene wasn't in yet,
but there was a uniformed cop she didn't recognize,
sitting at the desk beside Ray's, tapping on the
keyboard. She went and stood behind him, and
after a moment, he stopped typing and put on his
cap. He stood up and faced her, hands at his sides.

'Do I know you, officer?'

'DC Wingate. Ma'am,' he said. He changed his
mind about his cap and took it off again.
'Inspector.'

'DC who?'

He coughed into his hand. He looked like an
elongated boy scout to her – a six foot one boy
scout, mussed yellow hair and freckles, in the
wrong uniform. She saw Ray Greene enter through
the front of the station. 'Just stay there,' she said
to the young officer. She met Greene at the
counter. 'Does the name Wingate ring a bell for
you?'

Greene squinted at her. 'Wingate. His name
come up on something?'

'Not exactly,' she said. 'But he's standing over
there with his cap glued to his chest.'

He looked past her. 'Oh God,' he said. '
Wingate
.
He's here? I thought he was coming next week.'

'For
what
, Ray? Are we having a jamboree?'

'From Fifty-two. Downtown Toronto. He's
replacing Hunter.'

The officer had sidled up to the counter. 'Yes,' he
said. 'Fifty-two Division.'

'We got a
replacement
for Hunter?' said Hazel in
complete disbelief. 'Now how the hell did that
happen? I thought Mason was waiting for us all to
die off.'

'We put in the paperwork,' said Greene. 'I guess
he didn't notice.'

'Thank God for the right hand's relationship
with the left. So you're actually here to work for
us?' Wingate smiled, and Greene held his hand out
to shake. Hazel looked the officer over. How did a
kid this young get made detective? She offered her
hand, and he put a cool, ever-so-slightly clammy
palm into hers. Looking at his name tag, she asked,
'Is it James or Jim, then?'

'James is fine.'

They walked back toward Greene's desk. 'You
picked a hell of a day to start,' she said. 'Has anyone
caught you up?'

'I heard on the way. I'm not supposed to begin
until tomorrow, but I thought I'd come in and see
if I could be useful.'

'You psychic?' said Greene.

'No, sir.'

'Then you're in about the same boat as the rest
of us.' They stood there behind the front desk,
awkward now that introductions were over, and
Wingate cast a glance back toward the safety of his
desk, but stayed screwed to the spot.

'What were you up to at your desk, DC
Wingate?' she said.

'I hope you don't mind, but I asked Miss
Cartwright over there for Dr Deacon's email. I had
a question for him.'

'I don't mind at all.' She smiled. 'God, I'm going
to call you "son" if I'm not careful. Did he write you
back?'

'I hadn't finished my email. I wanted to ask him
his opinion on which of the injuries killed her. I
glanced at Detective Spere's report, which said
there was some blood on her. So it occurred to me
that, maybe, she—'

'None of her injuries killed her, officer,' said
Hazel.

Wingate slowly closed his mouth to a thin line.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to get ahead of myself.'

Greene had opened his copy of the report and
was scanning it. 'What do you mean she didn't die
of her injuries?' he said.

'She was already dead before he did any of that
violence to her. From a mushroom.'

'A mushroom,' repeated Ray Greene.

They followed Wingate back to his desk. The
message had been started
Dear Sir
. Hazel saw a
toothbrush beside the keyboard. 'Have you got
a place to stay, James?'

'My landlady isn't expecting me until tonight.'

'So you came here to work?'

'Is that all right?'

'I can't possibly promote you until at least
Thursday.'

'Ma'am?'

'She has a rather dry sense of humour,' said Ray
Greene, leaning over Wingate's keyboard to erase his
salutation, 'which is to say it's hard to know when to
laugh.' He stood straight again and gestured at the
computer screen. 'Jack Deacon works for us, so
there's no need to kowtow. Just say, "Jack".'

'I think I'll write him later,' said Wingate.

He'd put his cap down on the desk beside the
keyboard, and Hazel picked it up and handed it to
him. 'You feel like a drive?'

'Sure. Yes.'

'Let's go for a drive then.' She strode away from
him, and he followed, but quickly doubled back to
toss his toothbrush into the desk drawer.

'I'm not invited?' said Greene.

She called back to him over her shoulder. 'Do
some work. Set an example. I'm taking the new guy
to Mayfair.'

They drove south on 41, farmers' fields on either
side of them, the brown cornstalks knocked over.
Detective Constable Wingate sat stiffly in the
passenger seat, looking straight ahead down
the highway. Silence had never bothered Hazel,
but she suspected Wingate was being polite, so she
asked him where he was from.

'Toronto born and bred,' said Wingate. 'You
know the city?'

'Certain buildings.'

'It's not easy to like unless you were brought up
there.'

'You hoping to work your way back?'

'I just want to be wherever I can do the most
good.'

She glanced over at him. 'Okay. And what's the
real answer?'

He met her eyes, and she saw confusion in his.
'That is the real answer.'

'You have scout badges, DC Wingate, don't you?'

He laughed. 'You want to guess where I keep
them?'

'In a cigar box underneath your bed?'

'My mother has them. In an envelope in her
sock drawer.'

She remembered one of the questions they asked
applicants at the academy.
What kind of relationship
do you have with your mother?
they asked the men.
Because good sons made fine cops. Ray Greene had
brunch with his mother every Sunday. Drove out to
the Poplars to get her, and took her to Riverside
House for mimosas and pancakes. That was the
only other woman in his life, she realized, apart
from Michelle Greene, who had nothing to worry
about, if you didn't count the boredom of being
married to a cop whose dull vice was playing the
ponies. She tried to remember the question that
had given her pause at her own interview. Thirty-two
years ago now. Yes: did she want to have a
family? She'd said she did, and one of the interviewers
had written it down.

'There are hardly any women your age in Port
Dundas,' she said. 'Hard place for a young man to
settle down.'

'I'm not thinking about that right now,' Wingate
said. 'I have enough on my plate.'

'Did you leave a girl in Toronto?'