Tell Anna She's Safe

by Brenda Missen

  I looked all around the area where her car had been. And then I went for a walk down the railway tracks. I retraced the route Tim and I had taken in the dark. I felt a heightened sense of awareness. Not fear. I looked carefully in the pond water where he had shone his flashlight. The water was opaque with mud. The stumps and weeds sat benignly in the sun.

  I found the rotting dock. I stood on the relatively solid bottom step. In the water the frayed rope end washed back and forth. Even in daylight it still looked uncannily like human hair. But I watched it with surprising detachment.

  I strolled back up the tracks. I paused to look down at the river. I kept hearing Tim’s voice in my head. “It’s so shallow here. See how shallow it is?” Why had he kept saying that?

  Back at the car I stood looking down the road past the construction zone. A forest-green half-ton pick-up appeared around the bend and cruised down the hill towards me. I stood calmly. Resolute. Waiting for Tim to stop and tell me why he was here.

  But the driver didn’t stop. And it wasn’t Tim. It was a man I’d never seen before. And it wasn’t a forest-green pick-up; it was a teal-green van.

  I looked after the van after it passed me. I could see not only where it was going, but where it had come from as well. And who was lying in the back.

  “Slow down, Ellen. Take it easy. I’m listening. Where are you? What happened?”

  I leaned my forehead against the glass of the phone booth, trying to catch my breath. “I’m at the Tulip Valley restaurant. At a pay phone. I was up on River Road just now and I stopped to look around. I thought I saw Tim’s truck coming towards me. But then suddenly it wasn’t Tim’s truck; it was a van. A different shade of green. But it wasn’t real. Oh God, it wasn’t a dream either. I was standing in the middle of the road in broad daylight. I—I think I had some kind of vision or something. I saw—I saw what happened to Lucy on Saturday night. God, this sounds loony—”

  “Cut the commentary. Just tell me what you saw.”

  The sharpness of Quinn’s tone snapped me out of my embarrassment. I recounted what I had seen. “It wasn’t Tim driving; it was someone else. A man. I didn’t recognize him. But I could see inside the van as it went by. I could see Lucy. She was lying in the back, in a sleeping bag. I think that was the man-made material I got before. And, I can’t explain this, but I knew where they had come from. It was down in Hunt Club. I got an image of them driving away from those burnt-out barns. I’ve been thinking about them. I meant to have us look—” I stopped myself; who knew who was listening in? “I mean, I meant to ask you to look there earlier, but I didn’t see how they could have four walls and a roof. But now I’m wondering if there’s another shed or something somewhere close by. I was wondering if you—if someone could check. Check for that candy-bar wrapper. God knows,” I added in a self-mocking tone, “you might even find one with an actual fingerprint on it.”

  Quinn ignored that. “What else?”

  “I saw where they were going. I saw the van drive to a bridge and stop and the man went around to the back and lifted Lucy out. He—” I stopped. It was sounding like the plot of a cheap thriller.

  “He what?”

  “He dropped her off the bridge—into the water. Oh God, I think I must be losing my mind.”

  “You are not losing your mind, Ellen. You are in a highly emotional state. This whole experience has been traumatic.”

  “You think I’m hallucinating.”

  There was a slight pause. “I think you’re in an extra-sensitive state. Anything can happen.”

  I slumped back against the glass of the phone booth, holding my head in my hand. What Quinn really meant was that I was overwrought, imagining things. But on Saturday he had made it sound like he might even believe in this kind of phenomena. Words came out of his mouth and I didn’t know what to make of them. I didn’t know what to make of myself, either. Maybe I had been hallucinating. Maybe I was losing my mind altogether.

  “Ellen. Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Ellen, stop questioning yourself. There’s something to what you’re experiencing. No question. You’re the sanest woman I know. And you said yourself, if there’s a chance Lucy is still alive….”

  My words repeated back to myself pulled me out of my confusion. So did Quinn’s words: you’re the sanest woman I know. Not that it mattered what he thought. It didn’t matter what I thought. Whatever had just happened, I had to follow up on it.

  “There’s more,” I said in a wry tone.

  “I’m listening.”

  “It looked like he might have dropped something of hers on the bridge. I saw something fall but couldn’t make out what it was. Maybe a shoe. Something like that.”

  “Could you identify the bridge?”

  “No, just that it was a bridge for cars—not the railway bridge. There’s three up here that I can think of. Philemon Wright, Wakefield, and Farrellton.”

  “I don’t suppose….”

  “What?”

  “I don’t suppose you got the licence plate number of that van.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me—or at himself. But I found my sense of humour. “Sergeant Quinn, you know that would be too much to ask of a visionary. It wasn’t like seeing a truck go by in the usual way. I was seeing right into the van. Past it.”

  My voice must have sounded odd. “Are you alright?” His voice was sharp again. This time with concern.

  “I’m alright. I’m going to go search those bridges.”

  “No.”

  “But I have to—”

  “No. Not by yourself.”

  His words were like melted butter seeping into my jittery veins. I drank in his concern, his insistence that I wasn’t to go by myself. His caring. And if he was expressing that kind of concern, he must think there was something to this story. I thought about the possibility of meeting someone on the bridge. Some friend of Tim’s. The melted butter congealed.

  “I’m not trying to scare you,” he added. “I just think it’s too risky. I’ll send someone up. I’ll come up myself. I’m off in half an hour.”

  His words melted butter again. But automatically I protested. “Really, you don’t have to. I don’t think I’m going to meet anyone. If this really happened, I’m pretty sure it already happened. There was darkness all around the edges of the images. I don’t think it had to do with the way I was seeing the images. I think it was supposed to be night. Saturday night, maybe.”

  “You’re not to go up there on your own.”

  I drank in his orders. Without shame. Someone taking charge was exactly what I needed right now. “What about the barns?”

  I heard Quinn let out a breath through his nose. I imagined him tapping his fingers against his mouth as he had done in the interrogation room the night we’d met. “Okay, here’s the deal,” he said finally. “I’ll go check out those barns when I leave here. And you go home and wait for me. It doesn’t get dark ’til eight-thirty or nine these days. We have lots of time. I’ll come and get you and we’ll search those bridges this evening. And then….”

  I was almost afraid to ask. “And then?”

  “And then you’ll feed me dinner.”

  There it was again—that word, this time implied: date. I had to admit it. I wanted to have another meal with him. One less fraught. But I had no food in the house. And…. “I don’t think I can—”

  “You can,” said Quinn. “You will.” There was humour in his tone.

  He was right. It was the least I could do. I lightened up. “Yes sir.”

  His voice changed back to concern. “Are you okay now?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I am.” It was only a half-lie. The jangling in my veins was settling down. I was starting to get an entirely different case of nerves. The anticipating ki
nd.

  “Good girl,” said Quinn. “I’ll see you about seven or seven-thirty.” Neither of us mentioned our last contact. His comment on my “highly emotional state” when “anything can happen” had clearly been an allusion to it. He had understood. There was nothing more to say.

  At home I dug my runners out of the back of my closet and pulled my windbreaker off the hook. There would be time for an inaugural run before he arrived.

  I shut the front door behind me and stood for a moment with my hand on the handle. With Quinn coming up it felt alright to leave the door unlocked. Though he’d probably give me grief if he discovered it before I came back.

  I was back well before seven. I wanted time for a shower. And a snack. There was a pizza in the freezer we could heat up later.

  It was seven-forty when the black Integra pulled into the yard. I had forgotten to ask if he remembered the way. There had clearly been no need.

  “There was a million years of debris in those buildings,” he said when we headed north on the 105. “Let’s hope we have better luck on those bridges. Couldn’t you have a vision of where she is now?”

  I laughed, a bitter laugh. “It’s not my fault there’s a time lag. But I appreciate your humouring me.”

  “For the last time, I am not humouring you.”

  He looked anything but in good humour. I kept silent, except for directing him to the Farrellton Bridge, a few kilometres north of Wakefield. Quinn parked the car at the end of the bridge and we walked up one side and down the other. We didn’t speak. I had my eyes on the ground, scanning for any item that might belong to Lucy. We found nothing.

  In the middle of the Wakefield bridge I leaned over the railing. I looked into the water below. The current was fast but the water was deep. It made sense for her to be thrown off a bridge.

  Here she would sink to the bottom. She wouldn’t just wash ashore.

  It came to me with a certainty that had nothing to do with any vision: the night I had walked with Tim along the tracks he hadn’t put her in the river. But he had been thinking about it. He had, in fact, been thinking out loud. That was why he had kept saying, “It’s so shallow here.” He was realizing she would simply wash ashore. But she wouldn’t from the middle of a bridge.

  I caught up to Quinn. Told him my theory. He made no comment. He seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts. We drove in silence to the last bridge, Philemon Wright, the one closest to the Ontario border. This was the one with the most traffic. The least likely candidate. By the time we got back to the car I was frustrated. Angry.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as Quinn pulled away from the shoulder.

  He looked at me in surprise. “What are you sorry about now?”

  I waved my hand in the air. “For wasting your time.”

  Quinn smiled. “How could an evening stroll on three bridges in the lovely Gatineau Hills with you be a waste of time?”

  My face coloured as if he had said I was the lovely one.

  At the turn back onto the 105 highway, he turned south rather than north. “Where are you going? There aren’t anymore bridges south of here—not over the Gatineau.”

  “There’s a little place I know in town,” said Quinn, not taking his eyes off the road.

  “A restaurant?” But I knew the answer before he gave it.

  “My place.”

  My heart rate sped up.

  “We took a bit of a risk down there at Hunt Club. I don’t want to push it. You’re going to be a witness when Lundy and Roach finally crack this case. I wouldn’t want to give the defence any unnecessary ammunition.”

  “Are they going to crack this case?”

  “You bet those electrifying eyes of yours,” said Quinn. “But let’s not talk about that right now.”

  The case? Or my eyes? “But then you’ll have to drive me home.”

  “I’d rather do that than….”

  “Than what?”

  Quinn sent a quick glance my way. “Than eat in your boyfriend’s house.”

  “It’s my house too.” I was indignant. Though it wasn’t, technically, true. I would get my own. Soon.

  “I’d rather have you at my place.” He shrugged. “Call it male territoriality. I don’t mind driving you home.”

  Under my too-light jacket, I was starting to shiver.

  “What do your tastes run to?”

  I looked around Quinn’s living room. It was sparsely furnished, and needed a carpet, though the hardwood floors were beautiful. “Well, I think I’d prefer red wine, if you have any.” Wine, more than Scotch, would take the chill out of my bones. And hopefully slow my pulse too. What was I doing here?

  Quinn laughed. “In music, my girl. I meant in music.” He gestured to his CD cabinet. “Pick anything you like. And you can even have red wine. I’ll be back in a sec.”

  I listened to his footsteps retreating on the hardwood of the long narrow hallway. The stairs inside the walk-up had led us to an apartment on the second floor, with rooms off the long narrow hall. The kitchen was at the back, south-facing. The living room was in the front, with a small glassed-in balcony jutting out from it above the front porch. In between were two rooms. Quinn had opened the door to each in turn, his bedroom and the guest room. I had given the first room only a quick self-conscious glance. At the second, Quinn had said, “If I have too much to drink you can stay here.”

  “If you have too much to drink?” Then I realized what he meant. I was here without my car. My getaway car.

  Something must have shown on my face. Quinn gave me a light punch on the arm. “I’m kidding, El. I promise I’ll get you home tonight. Something to drink?”

  He led the way down the hall.

  “Are you giving me a choice this time?”

  “You always have a choice,” he said over his shoulder. “As long as it’s Scotch. And here’s the living room.”

  I had Blue Rodeo’s Five Days in July playing when he returned with two bulbous glasses of wine. Between the two of them, they looked like they held the contents of the entire bottle. Quinn handed me one and gestured to the couch. Blue Rodeo’s familiar distinctive sound was calming me down. The wine would do the rest. Quinn was a cop, for God’s sake; who would I be safer with?

  Facing me from a decorous distance, my cop held his glass out. “To nailing Brennan.”

  The toast undid my newly achieved calm. “To finding Lucy,” I said.

  Quinn clinked his glass to mine and took a sip. “Hmm, not bad for something I found in the bottom of my liquor cabinet.”

  “You could have had Scotch. I could have had Scotch.”

  He held up a hand. “I like wine. Just don’t have it very often. Wine you need someone to drink with.” He gave me a significant look.

  I took a large swallow then and offered to put some food together to go with the wine.

  “Relax. To be honest I’m not very hungry. Unless you are.”

  I shrugged. “I ate something before you came.”

  “Then there’s no rush. This is nice. Good music choice. I haven’t had a guest here since….”

  “How long have you been here?” I couldn’t remember when he had said he’d split up with his wife.

  “Bordering on a year now. It’s not really my kind of place, but it’ll do for now.”

  “Oh, don’t you like it? I love these older buildings.”

  Quinn looked around the living room and his face brightened. “It’s not bad, is it? I haven’t had much chance to do much in the way of decorating yet. I’m barely here.”

  “But you’re—” On half-time, I was going to say, but it didn’t feel like a topic I should initiate.

  “I’m just not the kind of guy who spends much time at home when it’s just me. Was different when I was married.”

&nbs
p; “Do you have kids?” I wasn’t sure if this was safer ground or not.

  Quinn shook his head. “No, thank God for that. I mean, if it wasn’t going to work out.”

  His comment brought to memory something Lucy had said early on about a pregnancy scare while Tim had still been in prison. I took another swallow of wine. The bottle had been in the bottom of Quinn’s liquor cabinet just a bit too long, I guessed, but I welcomed the relaxing buzz it was giving me. “How does that work in prison, anyway—exercising your conjugal rights?” I was willing myself not to blush.

  “Ah yes, the notorious private family visits. PFVs they call them. They take place in the fuck trailers. Pardon my language.”

  “Fuck trailers?” God, why had I asked?

  “They used to be actual trailers, but at Warkworth—that’s where Tim was transferred after Lucy met him—they had started building small semi-detached houses by the time she was visiting.”

  “So how would it work? I mean getting a PFV?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, but his voice sounded amused. “Tell me you haven’t got your eye on someone serving time in the slammer, Ellen McGinn.”

  “No. Forget I—”

  “Sorry. I’m being a brat. You want to know. You have a right. The way it works, as far as I understand, is: in Lucy’s case, meeting Tim after he was already behind bars, they’d have to know each other for a year before they could declare themselves common law. Then they could apply to have PFVs. You’re eligible every six weeks. You go for a weekend—three days actually, I think, Friday to Monday. Or Tuesday to Thursday. Lucy would have ordered—and paid for—all the food. Tim would have brought it from the kitchen. They would be locked into one of the fuck—sorry, I mean one of the houses—for the duration. Private time. He’d be allowed to wear civilian clothes.”

  Locked into a small house on prison grounds for three days with an inmate. I couldn’t imagine it. Though of course it would be entirely different if the inmate was your partner or husband. But for a person like Lucy, with all her fears. She must have felt supremely comfortable with Tim to risk doing that. I looked at Quinn then. I thought about visiting him in a prison. Being locked up for three days. Something in my abdomen, and lower, responded. I took a sip of wine, hoping the big glass would hide my face.