Unhinged

by Barbra Leslie

  “We’re crammed into our last-ditch panic room with no toilet and no means of communication with the outside world,” I said. “I think that, all in all, I’m doing pretty well.”

  “It’s just – look, with the security, the windows, and the monitors – how well do you really know Dave?”

  “This again?” I said. “My God, Darren.”

  “He provided the advice, the contractors, the workers – everything.”

  “And he knows all the tech,” Rosen added.

  “And he conveniently left this afternoon.” I could tell Darren wanted to say more, but stopped himself.

  “Shhh!” Mama Estela was sitting up. She was waving her hand to get us to shut up. We all looked at her, and listened.

  In the next five seconds, two things happened.

  The lights went out, leaving us in absolute darkness.

  And someone knocked on the closet door.

  It was not the kind of knock the police would use. It was not an authoritative kind of knock, or a banging. It was a deliberate, light-hearted knock: shave and a haircut, two bits.

  Rosen and Matt both turned flashlights on. Rosen waved the boys into the furthest corner, near the Garcias.

  Rosen indicated that we should all be quiet. He had his gun drawn. So did Darren. So did I.

  We heard voices, then. Barely, but we heard them. We had, on purpose, not gone for a sound-cancelling door, against Dave’s advice, and the advice of the contractor. I didn’t want any of the kids to wind up alone in this room, afraid, and not able to hear our voices. We were all absolutely still.

  Then another knock, a different one.

  “This is Sergeant Paul Belliveau of the Toronto Police Service. Identify yourselves.”

  His voice was muffled by the steel door that separated us. It was Belliveau. At least, it sounded like Belliveau. But something didn’t feel right.

  “It’s us, Paul,” Darren said loudly. “All of us, except Fred.” “That’s good news,” Belliveau said. “We’ve got the building now. You can come on out.”

  “Wait,” I said quietly. I called loudly, “What’s your wife’s middle name?” We’d had a long, slightly tipsy conversation one night about our middle names, and Joanne was pretending to feel hurt because she’d never been given one.

  Pause from outside the door, then Belliveau’s voice.

  “She doesn’t have one, Danny. It’s safe now. Come on out.”

  I nodded, and indicated to Rosen and Darren that they should stow their weapons. We didn’t know how many police were on the other side of that door, and we didn’t want anybody getting excited by the sight of a bunch of armed civilians.

  I kept mine, however, tucking it into the back of my jeans. The weight of it comforted me, and my very flawed spidey-senses were tingling.

  Rosen unlocked the door, but before he could open it I stepped in front of him. I wanted to be the first person walking into the room. I’d paid for this very expensive, insecure security, and I’d trusted Dave’s Toronto contacts. I’d trusted Dave. If someone was going to get hurt because of my decision, it wasn’t going to be anybody but me. Darren made a move as if to stop me, but I just gave him a look. He backed off.

  “Everybody else stay back. Boys, you don’t move until I tell you to.”

  I opened the door.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Paul Belliveau was standing six feet from the door, hand on holster. He smiled when he saw me, and dropped his head in relief.

  Also in the room were three uniformed cops, crouched over the body of a man on the floor. He was lying on his back with his legs and arms splayed.

  I stopped breathing. I couldn’t see the man’s face, but even at first glance I could tell that it wasn’t Fred. Nor was it Michael Vernon Smith. Or Dave. I started toward him, but Paul stopped me.

  “Not yet,” he said quietly as he approached me. “Let’s get the women and kids out of this area first.” He squeezed my upper arm. I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his men.

  “Women and children? What am I, chopped liver?” I said. Darren and Rosen had stepped out, and I called for the boys and the Garcias to join us.

  “It’s all over now,” Belliveau was saying to them. “Boys, ladies, please follow this officer. Directly, please.”

  “Who’s that?” Matty said. He stopped in his tracks.

  “No one we know,” I said. I looked at Belliveau and mouthed, Where’s Fred?

  He nodded. “Your dad is safe, guys,” Belliveau said to Matt and Luke. “An officer picked him up while he was out for his run. He’s out in my car, and he’s very keen to see you. We need you to go with this officer right now, okay?” The twins trooped out.

  Marta, Eddie in hand, stood in the closet doorway and spoke sharply in Spanish. A full minute later, Mama E. appeared in the doorway, a huge smile on her face.

  “Good for my back,” she said, gesturing back to the room. “My new bedroom.” I rolled my eyes at her and she nodded, following Marta and the boys and one of the officers out of the room.

  Belliveau watched them leave, and went and talked quietly to the other officer for a minute. He came back to us. “This is how I found him,” Belliveau said, nodding behind him at the body. “I’ve never seen him before. Between forty and forty-five years of age. He’s deceased, but there are no apparent signs of trauma. And he’s carrying no ID.”

  “I’ll look?” Rosen said, nodding at the dead body on our TV room floor.

  “Please,” Belliveau said. “I’m hoping one of you can identify him.”

  Rosen only had to look at the man for two seconds. “It’s Mr. King,” he said, emotionless. “Cliff King. Mr. Lindquist’s friend.”

  “Holy shit,” Darren said. He headed to the bathroom off the TV room.

  “Whoa there, Darren,” Belliveau said. “Off limits. The whole building is a crime scene. You can’t touch anything. We’ll be getting you out of here.”

  “But I have to go,” Darren said. “There’s no…” he pointed at the closet.

  Belliveau shone his flashlight into the closet. “You can use that bucket there,” he said. “You guys have been in there since the beginning, right?”

  “Just us,” I said. Belliveau smiled at Darren, who took the flashlight that Paul handed him with reluctance, and went back into the closet, shutting the door behind him.

  The combination of Darren’s face when he turned to go back into the closet and finding myself ten feet away from a dead body was starting to edge me into my usual hysteria. I started to giggle, and then snort, and soon I was bent over at the waist trying to get control of myself. At least I didn’t feel faint, or puke.

  The cop watched me with some confusion on his face. In most circles, busting a gut with merriment in front of a dead body is frowned upon apparently. At least Belliveau was used to me. I stood up straight, serious again.

  “It’s going to be a long night, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Oh, I believe so,” he said.

  “We’ve got to get somewhere safe,” I said. “The boys need sleep, especially Eddie.” I was glad we had to leave. I needed some distance before I could be in here again without being very, very angry.

  “You’re going to my place,” he said quietly. “There’s plenty of room. Well, sort of.”

  “We can’t do that,” I said.

  “You can and will,” Paul said. “It’s safer than a hotel. And Jo’s getting stuff ready for you. She’ll kill me in my sleep if I don’t bring you back there.” He shook his head then, as if he regretted his choice of words.

  I nodded. Joanne could be a little scary.

  “Who did this?” I said to him. “Him? Just him?”

  “I’d say him, and probably with at least – at least – one other person. Somebody had to have killed him,” he added. “Not to mention, at first glance, your electronics seem to have been stolen – laptops and so on.”

  “I guess it wasn’t natural causes, then.”
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  “Unless he let his partner leave with whatever they wanted, and he came up here to get more, or kill you all, and what… had a heart attack?” He looked at me. “Let’s go downstairs. But before we do – Danny, I’m going to need your boyfriend’s phone number. And everything else you know about him.”

  I didn’t have to ask him why. I just nodded. “He had nothing to do with it,” I said. “But I want to know how our supposedly top-notch security was so easily breached.”

  “Gavin there used to work for a glass company,” Belliveau said, indicating the officer who was squatting next to the dead Mr. King. “He had a quick look at the windows on the main floor and he thinks they’re all regular glass.” I looked at Gavin, who nodded.

  “Fan-fucking-tastic.” Aside from any other issue at the moment, I felt like such a fool. But I didn’t believe that Dave knew. He’d been duped or conned by his Toronto security guy.

  The alternative wasn’t something I could contemplate. Not now.

  “Look at it this way,” Belliveau said. “Having that little safe room there could have saved all of your lives. So I wouldn’t say it was all for nothing, would you?”

  Darren opened the closet door, and shut it behind him quickly. He was buckling his belt, and he looked slightly traumatized.

  “We’re getting plumbing in there,” he announced.

  “Whatever you say.” I hugged him, and then hugged Belliveau. I didn’t care if it embarrassed him. I spent a good chunk of my life in embarrassing situations; time to spread the joy.

  * * *

  I was glad the next day was Saturday, and we didn’t have to think about whether or not to keep the boys home from school. I doubted that I was going to be able to let them out of my sight until they were twenty-one.

  Paul and Joanne Belliveau lived off the Danforth, geographically only about a few kilometers away, but a world away from our industrial neighborhood. They had an old large home on a leafy residential street, steps away from the Greek restaurants, pubs, yoga centers and health food stores along one of Toronto’s main commercial drags. They’d bought the house for a song when they were married thirty years earlier, and in Toronto’s ridiculous real estate market, it was worth more than fifteen times what they’d paid.

  “We think of selling every once in a while,” Joanne told me. We were arranging blow-up mattresses and sleeping bags on their third floor, which was an open-concept loft area with a small deck. They used it as an office, but, by the looks of it, it didn’t see much use. “But as I always say, then what? We sell, but we still have to live somewhere. And I can’t imagine leaving the neighborhood. They’ll have to carry me out of here feet first.” I thanked her again for taking us all in, and she told me to zip it.

  She was a bit like a more matronly Mama Estela. She was half my size but I wouldn’t want to pick a fight with her.

  Darren, Rosen, and the twins were all on the third floor, with Darren and Rosen billeted at each of the two large couches, and Fred on the floor with Matt and Luke. Marta politely made it plain that wherever Eddie slept, she would be with him, and nobody argued with her. So they got one of the spare rooms. And I would be bunking in with my new bestie Mama E. in the other.

  Back at the bakery, crime scene techs were dusting for fingerprints and whatever else they do. Because of the Michael Vernon Smith connection and the dead body in the TV room, I had a feeling that we were going to be guests of the Belliveaus for more than a day or two.

  I’d given Belliveau Dave’s full name: David Andrew Stewart, and his cell number. As I did, I realized that I had taken Dave’s word on what his legal name was. I knew, of course, that he had IDs under other names. I’d seen some of them. I’d taken Dave at his word about his real name, because why wouldn’t I? I hadn’t found out my late husband Jack’s real name – at least, the name he’d had for the first eighteen years of his life – until he told me, the day he was killed. Jack had good reasons for changing his identity. If David Stewart wasn’t my boyfriend’s legal name – if it was just another alias, another persona – I hoped like hell that he had as good a reason for not telling me as Jack had had.

  By nearly three in the morning, he hadn’t phoned me, nor I him. Belliveau asked me to wait until the morning, or at least until he was able to reach Dave himself.

  I didn’t give him the emergency number I had for Dave, tattooed on my inner thigh. Not yet. I was jangly and wired, and I wanted either cocaine or sleep before I thought too deeply about what had happened. My mind was spinning. The Percocet I’d taken earlier had worn off, and perhaps because of the tension in my body, the pain was flaring up again.

  Hours earlier when Fred had seen the boys emerge safe and sound from the bakery, he broke down. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen him cry before. It wasn’t pretty, but I was glad to see it. Sitting at the Belliveaus’ kitchen table, I listened while he told us about Cliff: how he’d blamed Fred for their failure getting seed money for their start-up in California, how Cliff had been drinking heavily on the plane on the way back, and hadn’t returned Fred’s calls since. No one had any idea how Cliff had gotten in – Belliveau told me the police had found Fred nearly two miles away from our place, jogging very slowly in the fluorescent yellow jacket he often wore at night, and the timing meant it would have been nearly impossible for him to have let Cliff in, in case we’d been wondering about that – but Cliff had been to our place often enough to know the layout of the place. Fred thought Cliff was probably after business details on his computer, but possibly saw a payday in taking anything that could be sold – or might have information that could be sold.

  “He was making me nervous there at the end,” Fred said. “Especially on that flight back to Toronto. He was really asking a lot about what had happened to Ginger, and wanted to know everything I know about Smith. Certainly more than I wanted to talk about.”

  Of all of us, Fred was definitely the most reluctant to talk about the past, about what had happened in California and Maine. And he certainly wouldn’t be keen to talk about it to anyone who wasn’t there.

  “I wanted to trust him,” Fred was saying. “I needed – I need – a career. I need to do something other than sitting around in that factory all day.” He glanced at Darren, as though he was worried he was insulting him.

  “We all need that, Fred,” Darren said. “But we decided to put the boys first for a while. Their safety. Their happiness.”

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t think anymore. I didn’t want to think about the sacrifices that Darren had made to babysit not only our nephews but also to babysit me. I was still a wild card, the addict who might relapse, and now the mentally ill woman who might go nuts again at the drop of a hat.

  A craving for crack hit me hard, harder than it had in months. The bliss, and the oblivion.

  Say what you will about my life as an addict, but I saw very few corpses when I was sitting on my couch getting high.

  I excused myself, thanked our hosts again, and went up to bed.

  Mama Estela was asleep on one of the twin beds, snoring more loudly than I thought possible for someone her size. The only light in the room was her phone, which she had plugged in to charge on the dresser. I took off my jeans and felt my own phone in the pocket, and looked at Mama’s to see if hers was finished charging. I hadn’t thought to grab my charger when we were allowed to enter our rooms, escorted, and pack a few things.

  Mama had a photograph on her home screen. A picture of Marta and Eddie and the twins in their kitchen back at the bakery, with a young blonde girl. Moira, I presumed. I looked closer. I hadn’t met Moira yet.

  I looked again, and then turned the overhead light on in the room.

  The girl in the photograph, the one whose arms were draped around Luke’s neck while Eddie made bunny ears behind her head. Moira.

  It was Ann. Ann, whom I had witnessed being assaulted at Helen of Troy while she was working as a dancer. Who didn’t want to tell me her age. Whom I had allowed to be abducted in
the alley, and whose body had been washed ashore on Lake Ontario.

  Ann was Moira, and Moira was Ann.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Darren and I went to make the identification. I confirmed that the body that had washed up on Cherry Beach was the young woman I had known as Ann, and Darren that it was the girl he’d known as Moira.

  No one had reported her missing. The number Darren had on his phone for the man he’d spoken to several times who claimed to be Ann’s father was no longer in service, but the police were checking on that. The home address Ann had given to the strip club didn’t exist – at least, the apartment number didn’t – and the address Moira was registered at with the school was inhabited by a nice family of recent Syrian refugees who seemed saddened by the death of a young girl, but confused as to why the police would be looking for information about her at their house. They had genuinely never seen her before.

  Dave still hadn’t called, and I could no longer leave messages. His phone was switched off. So was Jonas’s. I could call his emergency contact, the number tattooed into my thigh, but something stopped me. I didn’t want to think about it much. Dave had supervised the installation of our so-called security. He had left the day we were broken into. He was supposed to be on a safe, boring assignment in Florida, and he should have checked in by now. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was very wrong.

  And someone had to tell Luke that his little girlfriend Moira – who, according to the forensic pathologist, was probably fifteen or sixteen – was dead. And, oh yeah, she’d been moonlighting as a stripper. We agreed to wait a day or two to talk to him about it. Luke thought Moira was on an off-the-grid trip with her family, so he wasn’t worried about her. And besides, with his home and sense of security being torn out from under him yet again, nobody wanted to face that conversation. Paul Belliveau agreed we could leave it until Monday, but that Luke would need to be questioned about Moira.

  And as for me? Well, I had my own plan.

  I stuffed a few things into a fanny pack, and dressed for a run. Mama Estela was in the kitchen butting heads with Joanne Belliveau over the cooking of dinner, and Rosen and Darren had taken the boys out for soccer in the park. I had no idea where Fred or Belliveau were. I poked my head into the kitchen and announced that I was going for an easy run to burn off some steam, and see where my pain level was.