Tell Anna She's Safe

by Brenda Missen

  It was a relief to find a neutral question to ask Quinn.

  “Well, the thing was he was serving two sentences. The system had him serving them consecutively, but there was an argument to be made that he should have been serving them at the same time. Eventually Lucy hired a lawyer to argue that case in court, and that’s how he was finally released. But for those two years they were trying to go through the usual channels.”

  “Through the Parole Board.”

  “Yes, his mandatory release was this year—this month, in fact—but he’d been eligible for parole for some time. To get parole you have to have a hearing and you have to fulfill certain conditions. I’m not an expert on the process, but I think you have to have so many ETAs—escorted temporary absences—and then UTAs—unescorted temporary absences—before you’re eligible for day parole. So you have a hearing and you get granted an ETA, then you fulfill that and you’re granted at UTA, and so on. But there were all kinds of screw-ups with Brennan. They’d grant him a UTA and then there wouldn’t be any record of it, and they’d have to wait to have another hearing. Stuff like that. Personally I think it was all deliberate.”

  “Deliberate? Why?”

  “He should never have been let out.”

  I started at the vehemence in his voice. “Because he was dangerous? So why did they? If they knew how dangerous he was?”

  Quinn shrugged. “Lucy.”

  “Lucy?”

  “My theory is: they were trying to throw away the key, but she got on their case. She started writing to the National Parole Board. Got her family, all her friends writing too. Letters of support. From their tone, you’d think they’d put an innocent man behind bars. Another Fajber. From what I can tell, they tried to put her off, but she just kept at them. For two years. The irony is their relationship was volatile even while he was in prison.”

  “Volatile?” I felt suddenly sick.

  “His records are full of concerns expressed about arguing during phone calls, visits. Yelling, fighting. I just don’t get why she didn’t see it coming.”

  Yelling, fighting. I thought about the Lucy I had known. She had a pretty quick temper. But she never seemed to hold a grudge. The thought came to me: maybe for Lucy, yelling and arguing were just normal. But why? Did it really all go back to her childhood?

  “Lucy let me read some of the letters Tim sent when they started corresponding. Sounded like he grew up in a pretty remote part of Ontario. And she told me he was abused when he was a kid. Do you know anything about that?”

  Quinn shook his head. “Probably all lies. Probably fed her some story to lure her in.”

  The bartender arrived with the second round of drinks. I wasn’t halfway through my first. I took another swallow of the now lukewarm wine and got the question out I really wanted to ask. “I guess nothing was resolved over the weekend.”

  Quinn appeared unsurprised at the switch in topic. He shook his head. “They’re still working on it, Ellen.”

  “And I don’t suppose—I don’t suppose they’re searching the Gatineau River.” I felt like an idiot saying it.

  “I don’t think they’re concentrating directly on the river, no, but they are searching the general Gatineau area.”

  “And did you—were you able to go down to the Hunt Club area again?”

  “I passed your message on to Lundy and Roach,” said Quinn. “I don’t know if they had a chance yet.” He avoided my eyes.

  “You must think I’m nuts with all my dreams and visions.”

  “I told you I didn’t.” I thought I detected a note of annoyance.

  “Well, I do,” I laughed. Before he could respond, I asked, “Are you officially on this case now? Are you working with Sergeants Lundy and Roach?”

  “Not officially. But I’m not very busy with other things right now. So I’m helping out when I can. Behind the scenes stuff. I’ve been investigating Brennan’s prison history. And,” he added, “I’m getting a life back. It might even include hiking and biking. But not canoeing.” He was looking at me significantly.

  I narrowed my eyes at him.

  Quinn saw my look. “I’m not laughing at you. There’s nothing wrong with being scared.”

  “Who said I’m scared?”

  “Hey, hey, don’t get defensive on me. And don’t worry, it’s not obvious to the whole world. But you are, aren’t you?”

  I made no response.

  “There’s nothing wrong with having fears. It’s not as if you’re debilitated by them.”

  Like Lucy was.

  I felt some weight lift. Something I hadn’t even known was there. Marc had never “allowed” me to be afraid. I was being given permission to acknowledge it. To speak it out loud. I did. “I’m terrified of drowning. Especially in white water.”

  “See? Was that so bad to say?” He seemed pleased. As if I were a good therapy patient.

  “How could you tell, anyway?”

  Quinn shrugged. “I’m trained to read between the lines.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about Sergeant Quinn being able to read between the lines. It was disconcerting. But I wanted him to read more.

  “It’s not that I can’t swim,” I said. “But I can’t relax. Can’t get my breath. I feel out of my element. And it’s not because I’m not in shape.” I cursed myself for sounding defensive again.

  “No,” said Quinn, in a way that made it clear he’d noticed that. He raised his glass. “I promise you this.”

  “What?” I was wary.

  “Our first date will not be in a canoe.”

  Date? The word brought colour to my face.

  “Although….” He was smiling.

  “What?” I said again. Even warier.

  “I think we might just be having it.”

  I reached for the second glass then.

  I directed Quinn to the Old Chelsea exit so I could pick up my car at Mary Frances’s. I would come back for the dogs in the morning. I hoped the engine sounds in the driveway wouldn’t wake anyone up. Mary Frances knew I was coming home tonight; she wouldn’t worry about the car being gone. She’d had a previous engagement or she would have come to pick me up herself. Interesting coincidence that she hadn’t been able to come.

  I opened the trunk for Quinn to throw my bag in. “Thanks, Sergeant Quinn. I’ll be fine from here. And thank you for—”

  “I’m seeing you home.” It was not up for debate.

  The Integra’s headlights swung out onto the highway behind me. I was reminded of the last time I had let someone follow me home. These lights in my rear-view were giving me the same jitters.

  I took a long deep breath when I turned down my road. At the airport he’d referred to my dark house, my not wanting to arrive there alone. The house was dark. In my panic to get to the airport I had forgotten to leave a light on. But he wouldn’t know that. Unless he’d come up here already.

  I was talking hard to myself as he followed me up the dark steps. So what if he had parked in my driveway before, walked up these steps, peered in the windows? It was not a bad thing to have a cop checking on your empty house in your absence. But why not tell me?

  By the time we reached the door I was calm again. Given the circumstances, it would have been unnerving to arrive here by myself. I wondered if I could ask him to check around inside without sounding like a paranoid female.

  “You don’t mind living here by yourself?” His voice came out of the darkness behind me.

  “That,” I said, “is a relatively new phenomenon, and coinciding with these extraordinary circumstances, I have to admit it’s not ideal.” I shoved the key into the lock and looked around at the black shadow that was Quinn. “But under non-extraordinary circumstances, I think I wouldn’t mind at all. I have the dogs for company. Usually. I’ll pick
them up tomorrow.” I opened the door, flicked on the kitchen and outdoor lights. “I’ll be alright.”

  Quinn stepped in the door behind me. “I know you will. But since we do have extraordinary circumstances, including, at the moment, a police sergeant in your front hall, you might like me to walk around the house with you. Make sure everything’s in order.”

  There wasn’t a hint of teasing or condescension in his tone or face. This was what he was trained for. “I wish you’d stop reading my mind,” I said.

  “I wish you’d speak your mind.”

  I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, since you’re here, Sergeant Quinn, I would appreciate it. But I want to state that I’m not normally a ner—”

  “I know,” he interrupted, and walked past me into the kitchen. There was anger in his tone. I didn’t think it was directed at me.

  He was thorough. And admiring of the house. But his presence, his eyes on everything, put me on edge. Every time he came near me I thought he was going to embrace me. It scared the hell out of me. That he might. That I might want him to.

  At the front door, Quinn paused. He reached out, encircled my wrist with thumb and forefinger. A light but electric hold. “I’m not supposed to discuss the case with anyone, but I’ll tell you this. Because I think you’ll sleep better knowing. We have a tail on Brennan twenty-four hours a day. And he’s a creature of habit. In by eleven, up by six. Prison habits die hard.”

  Then he leaned in close. I froze, waiting for the kiss. Instead his voice was soft in my ear. “Ellen,” he said. “Drop the Sergeant stuff. Just Quinn.”

  He straightened up and let go of my wrist. Resumed his “cop” voice. “Now lock the door behind me and go to bed and get some sleep.”

  For once I did what I was told. Without minding.

  I open my eyes. It’s still dark. I feel her presence before I see her. There is a familiarity now. I want to speak but still I can’t. I can only watch as more images play out in front of my eyes. The outbuilding is empty now. But there is garbage everywhere. The building is knee-deep in it. Then Lucy’s voice, even fainter than before. Barely audible. “A candy-bar wrapper … fingerprints….”

  She doesn’t speak again. Her image is fading. I want to ask questions. This building, where is it? And where are you now? But she’s gone.

  I opened my eyes to the sun streaming in the window. For a moment I wondered why the dogs hadn’t woken me already, weren’t nosing at my hands. Then I remembered where they were. But I hadn’t been alone in the night.

  This time I was ready to admit Lucy’s visit was not just a dream. She was becoming a presence in my life. She was telling me there might be a candy-bar wrapper, or something, with Tim’s prints on it. Evidence he’d been in that outbuilding. Maybe there would be evidence that she had been there, too. If the police weren’t going to look where I asked them to, I would just have to go look myself.

  I mulled over the prospect on my walk up to the highway for the mail, enjoying the fact that my sciatic nerve barely twinged anymore. It was daylight. Tim wasn’t likely to show up at the outbuilding if Lucy was no longer there. He certainly wasn’t going to show up if none of this was true. What did I have to lose that wasn’t already lost?

  I clicked the lock shut on the mailbox. Tucked the bills and my hands deep into my pockets and trudged back down the hill to my road. I missed the dogs, but another day at Mary Frances’s wouldn’t hurt. I would pick them up on my way home. At the front door, I had my key ready to let myself in. I was learning.

  From my upstairs office, I called Mary Frances, then Angel. I waited to be put through. From habit, I stood in the space between the desk and the window, leaning back against the desk to look out. The view was never the same twice. Today, the hills across the river looked like someone had covered them in a pale green wash. A hint of spring. In the bay, the wind was pushing the white-capped waves towards shore—inexorably was the word that came to mind. The river was completely open now. Marc would have already been out paddling, plowing through white-caps, dodging stray logs. They were ghosts of the drive that had been conducted on the Gatineau up until only a few years before. I’d spent hours, when I first moved in with Marc, watching the big circular booms, with their log prisoners, floating lazily downstream. Environmental concerns had put an end to that era. The river was being cleaned up now, but there were still lots of deadheads next to shore and stray logs floating downstream, especially in spring. They didn’t bother Marc. I could see him in my mind’s eye, stroking efficiently on the water in his sleek We-no-nah Sundowner. Five strokes on one side with a bent-shaft paddle, five strokes on the other. In a racing canoe, Marc was a machine.

  Angel came on the line, and I gave myself a mental shake. More visions I did not need.

  “Take as much time as you need,” said Angel. “We finished up that research package on Cree myths for you. Things are pretty slow now. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Nothing like a holiday with a recent ex in the lovely suburbs of a northern town to put you back on your feet.”

  “That’s the first sarcastic remark I’ve heard you make in a week, you must be okay.”

  Was I? No. Sarcasm was a refuge. It always had been.

  At exactly six and a half kilometres south of Lucy’s street, running east off Bank was a neighbourhood street called Delta Drive. The end of the street backed onto the Greenbelt, the huge band of open lands and forests surrounding Ottawa’s urban areas that was intended to prevent urban sprawl and provide a natural respite for the city’s residents. This particular section of the Greenbelt, I saw from my car, was greened (or would soon be greened) with poplars.

  I didn’t get out of the car. Instead, I leaned over and locked the doors.I looked down the path that ran between two houses into the woods. Would Tim and Marnie have dared walk past these houses? It seemed too public. And then there was the irrational feeling I’d had since that night out with Quinn: that what I wanted was a road heading west off Bank. It was just more voices in my head. There were way too many now.

  In the rear-view mirror I watched a burgundy van with tinted windows pull over a short distance behind me. No one got out. I started the car and headed back to the main thoroughfare. I watched the van in my rear-view. It stayed put, and still no one got out.

  There were no streets running west off Bank this far south. I headed back north. Another road to the east dead-ended at a run-down industrial park. I sat looking at the warehouses in front of me. Several trucks were backed up to them. Not isolated enough. No poplars. No point.

  Back on Bank, I turned south again. That was when I noticed the cemetery on the west side of the street. There were three gates, all open, with narrow roadways leading in. A cemetery would be a good place to hide a dead body. That was another voice in my head. At least this one had a sense of humour. Of sorts.

  I drove in through the first of the gates. The three roads converged at the back of the cemetery at another roadway parallel to Bank. The road ended at a grey prefabricated building. An outbuilding. Beyond the building were trees. Maples.

  There was no one in sight. I got out of the car and headed toward the building. I walked all around it. There were no windows. The structure was surrounded with junk and debris. The image I had got was of garbage inside. I couldn’t see inside. Could this be it? Could Lucy have meant maples, not poplars? The door was secured with a padlock. It didn’t look like it had been tampered with.

  My heart was thudding. I walked to the edge of the woods. They spread down a short ravine to a small creek, which was barely visible through the thicket.

  Also barely visible was someone making his way up through the trees towards me.

  I didn’t stick around to find out who it was.

  I drove home angry. Angry that I was a woman, too scared to walk through woods or buildings by myself. Angry with Marc for not be
ing there to help me. Angry with the police for not searching where I asked them to.

  I needed someone to go with me. Someone male. I couldn’t imagine Angel even going for a walk, let alone a search. The one person who would do this for me wasn’t someone I was sure I could ask. Or should.

  I stopped in at Mary Frances’s on my way home.

  “I don’t want to talk about anything right now,” I said at the door, before she could bombard me with questions.

  Her expression was sympathetic. “You’ve really had it from all sides, haven’t you? Are you sure you wouldn’t like to just move in for awhile? The dogs have already become members of the family. They just about sit on chairs at the table. Jack’s been spoiling them with treats all weekend.”

  “Great. You’ve created a couple of monsters. You might just get them as permanent residents. I appreciate your offer, but I think I need to be at home. My big, brave, now fat, spoiled dogs will keep watch. I’ll call you when—”

  “Just tell me you’re not in contact with Brennan. That’s all I need to know.”

  I assured her I wasn’t. It was not contact with Brennan I was struggling about.

  There was no question I was freaked out. I was supposed to be freaked out. Under the circumstances, how could I be anything else? But it was not Steve Quinn I needed to be freaked out about. That fear, anyway, was completely unfounded. Quinn was someone who could help.

  The light was flashing on the phone when I got in. One new message. Then Marc’s voice. “It’s probably just as well I have your answering machine. I probably shouldn’t be calling.” An audible sigh. “But I can’t help it, I’m worried about you, Ellen. I got a call from a Sergeant Quinn after you left. I assume—I hope—you know the name. He was looking for you. I made him give me his number to call him back before I spoke to him or gave him your flight information. You will call me paranoid—no doubt. (No, “careful,” I thought, remembering what Quinn had said. Caring.) But this whole situation is scaring the shit out of me. I know I haven’t sounded very supportive; it’s only because I’m scared for you.” There was a pause, and another sigh, and then: “I’m glad you came last weekend. I wish you had stayed, but I have realized you need to search or whatever it is you’re doing. I don’t understand it. I just see something is driving you. Please, please, please be careful. And you know I’m here if you need anything. Okay, ma chère. Je t’aime.”