Woman Chased by Crows

by Marc Strange

  “They didn’t look into him? Background check? Talk to the wife? Like that?”

  “Nope. Scooped him, locked him up. Figured he’d give it up if he sat in a room for a while. Then your boss started making noises and they had to send him back here.”

  “Too bad,” Stacy said. “They might have found out a few things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, there’s no such person. Harold Ruth, H&R Construction, the marriage, all BS.” Stacy, as usual, had copious notes. “He doesn’t show up anywhere before last September when he rented that house. Buys a truck, has somebody paint H&R Construction on the doors, but aside from renting some equipment at the Rent-All, I can’t find any record that he did any construction work anywhere. No building permits, no tax returns, nothing. The doctor arrives a few weeks after he shows up, sometime in October, rents space in the medical building, but she didn’t have much of a practice, either. Their marriage doesn’t show up anywhere. She wasn’t listed with OHIP, Physicians and Surgeons, nada. Both of them totally bogus.”

  “Mystery couple.”

  “And no picture of him to show your tiny admirer.”

  Orwell spotted them as he came out of his office. He was heading home for an early supper and a theatre date with the entire family, if reports of Diana’s visit were accurate. As the two detectives across the room seemed entirely absorbed in what they were doing, he decided to leave them alone. Roy Rawluck gave him a smart salute as Orwell headed for the door.

  “Anything pressing that needs my attention, Staff?”

  “Everything’s under control, Chief,” Roy said. “Big night tonight, is it? Her debut?” (He pronounced it day-boo.) “I’m a Gilbert and Sullivan man myself. Pirates of Penzance and all that.”

  “Yes,” Orwell said. “I hear you’ve got quite the singing voice when the mood strikes you.”

  “Back in my school days, of course.”

  “Sorry I missed it. All right, I’m off.”

  “Wish her merde for me, Chief.” He leaned closer, as if imparting a secret. “That’s what they say in the theatre.”

  Orwell was almost at the door when he spotted Constable Maitland climbing in a hurry. “What’s up, Charles?” he asked.

  “Might have a lead on the car that picked up your ballet dancer, Chief,” Maitland said. “Got to check a few things first.”

  “Things you need me for?”

  “I don’t know for sure if I’ve got anything. Might take a while.”

  “Okay. Crean and Moen are up there. Work with them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Keep me in the loop.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Maitland was obviously in a hurry to get moving. Orwell slapped him on the back. “Off you go then.” He watched his constable take the rest of the stairs two at a time. Darn. He was tempted to linger a while longer, but he’d probably just get in the way. He reminded himself that he should set his phone to vibrate or whatever it did. Wouldn’t want Marvin Gaye going off in the middle of his daughter’s big scene. That would be disastrous. He clumped down the stairs, feeling somewhat left out.

  “All right, Charlie,” said Stacy. Three heads were close together peering at the computer screen. “You got it all.” The shot of the dark blue Chevy pulling away was beautifully framed between the bright faces of the Wallaces’ smiling parents, and at over 1,600 x 1,200 pixels, the resolution was more than high enough to enlarge the small portion they were interested in and get a clear image of the license plate. One of the numbers was partially obscured behind the woman’s hand raised in farewell.

  “What is that, a two?” Stacy asked.

  “Definitely a two,” said Maitland.

  “I’m with Charlie,” Adele said. “That’s a two.”

  Stacy asked, “You want to stay with it, or are you clocking off?”

  “I’d like to track it down, if you don’t mind.”

  “Go get ’em, cowboy,” Adele said. “We’ll be right here scratching our heads and looking stupid.”

  She was sitting in the near dark, it was after sundown, her eyes had become accustomed to the gloom and she could just make out the post beside the door. There was something jutting out of the post that she wanted to get closer to. Shifting the chair was a slow process, side to side, a centimetre at a time, and how much time did she have to work with? Someone would be back before long, and perhaps not the silky-voiced doctor this time, maybe now they would try harsher persuasion. She had a high tolerance for pain, but there were different sorts of pain and she did not want to be around when they decided that they could not waste any more time.

  The chair was old and the glue in the cross members was dry and cracked and whoever tied her up did not know how strong her legs were. By working her knees side to side, back and forth, she was loosening the joints and the front chair legs were splayed, on the point of pulling apart. Not just yet, she cautioned herself — if it collapses now I will be tangled in the middle of the floor far away from where I want to be. Where she wanted to be was closer to the post. In the darkness she could just make it out, a big rusty nail holding an ancient license plate, someone’s first car probably.

  A centimetre at a time and try not to break the chair before you get there. Now, this part will be critical: tilt back until the front legs are off the floor and your back reaches the post, now pull your legs apart, hard. The snap of splintering wood was louder than she thought it would be, but there was no stopping now. First the cross brace popped loose, and then the front legs fell out. She rocked forward, her ankles were still bound, but the chair legs were lying on the floor and she was standing. She bent her knees and slid the back of the chair up the post until it caught under the nail, then she pushed as hard as she could, thighs burning, shoulders twisting, back and forth, working her hands up the splines until, finally, it slipped out from between her arms. She was free of the chair. Her hands were still tied behind her back, but that was no trick. Lie on her back, roll onto her shoulders, arms under her buttocks and feet. Still a mess with the broken chair legs and ropes around her ankles and her fingers swollen and numb. But those were just details, just a matter of working the knots, one at a time, until her legs were completely free and her hands were in front now where she could work on the knot with the nail head, pushing and pulling. She knew her wrists were bleeding, she could feel the blood running down her forearms inside her sleeves. Not too much of that please, she was weak enough. But the knot finally gave up its last secret and she was free.

  Now for a weapon. One of the chair legs, rock hard maple, a hundred years seasoning in a farm kitchen, a good weight, still with a jagged piece of the cross member sticking out of the middle. They would feel it.

  She edged out of the small room and into a much larger space. There were soft echoes all around, birds fretting and settling high above, her feet sliding across the rough wood planks. Through a high window in the hayloft above her she could see a star.

  “Can’t be a two,” said Constable Maitland. He looked worried and baffled. “I’ve tried everything else, but nothing pops up with that make and model Chevy.”

  “What did you get if it is a two?” Adele asked.

  “A ’98 Honda Civic.”

  “Where?”

  “RR2 Janetville.”

  “That’s just down the road,” Stacy said. “Maybe somebody’s missing a license plate.”

  “Worth a shot.” Adele turned to Maitland. “You wanna come with, cowboy? Or you gotta get home for supper?”

  “I’m in.”

  “Good man,” she said. “I knew you were a go-getter. Let’s go get ’em.”

  The Honda was owned by a Mrs. Brewster who told them her car had been in Crater’s Body Shop on Highway 35 for two weeks after some idiot had rear-ended her at a stoplight in Port Perry. The body shop claimed they were waiting on a rear bumper
and trunk lid and she was getting fed up with the delay. She didn’t think Crater was taking the job seriously.

  Crater’s Body Shop was three klicks north of Highway 7A on 35. The place was definitely not a hive of activity. Three men were sitting around a hoist discussing the hockey playoffs and how much the Leafs sucked. The man in charge, Les Crater, was slow to heave his bulk vertical. It probably had to do with the extra forty kilos he was packing, mostly around his middle. When he saw Maitland’s uniform he tried to suck in his gut.

  “What’s up?”

  Stacy took the lead. “You’ve got a Honda Civic here belonging to a Mrs. Brewster of Janetville, is that right?”

  “Look, if she’s got any more complaints you can tell her to take ’em up with her insurance company. They’re the ones sitting on their asses.”

  “That’s not our concern, sir. Is the blue Honda outside, the vehicle in question?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. What about it?”

  “Were you aware that it’s missing its license plates?”

  “Well yeah, so? I had to take the plates off, didn’t I? Thing’s got crumpled bumpers back and front.”

  “And do you know where those plates are now?”

  “Oh hell, over on the workbench.”

  “I don’t think that’s where they are,” Stacy said. “Would you mind having a look?”

  While Crater checked the workbench and the other two men kept their voices low and their eyes averted, Maitland and Moen took slow strolls around the shop.

  “Well, I don’t know where the hell they are,” Crater said. “They’re supposed to be in this drawer.”

  “Who would have access to the drawer, sir?”

  “It isn’t locked. Hell, anybody. I don’t know.”

  “Hey, Stace?” Adele was waving at her from the far side of the shop. She was standing near a plate glass window looking in at a dust-free room where a Ford pickup was getting a new paint job.

  Stacy opened the door and stepped inside.

  “Hey, that’s dust-free in there,” Crater yelled. “Don’t go tracking shit in.”

  “Relax,” said Adele. “My partner’s been sterilized.” She followed Stacy into the room. “I’m a bit of a slob though.”

  The two women walked around the truck. Maitland stayed in the doorway, watching closely. “What are you seeing?” he wanted to know.

  “Shitty paintjob, for one thing. I can still make out the letters on the door panel.”

  “H&R,” said Stacy. “That mess on the bottom could say ‘Construction.’”

  Adele looked toward the door where Crater was trying to see past Constable Maitland. “How much you charge for a shitty paint job these days?” she asked.

  “Rush job,” Crater said. “Guy’s business went tits-up.”

  “You got the guy’s address handy?”

  Orwell liked seeing his wife in a dress, not least because she had quite nice legs, but also because she didn’t wear a pretty frock that often. (Sundays didn’t count; the outfits she wore to her obligatory Lutheran church service might as well have been God’s righteous armour.) Being a practical woman who spent a great deal of her time digging holes and repotting seedlings, Erika was most often found in wellingtons and garden gloves. Likewise his daughter Patty, who spent most of her free time mucking out stalls and exercising horses. It was therefore a treat for him to see them both wearing heels and earrings and makeup.

  “Lovely, lovely, the pair of you,” he said.

  “What am I, chopped liver?” Diana wanted to know.

  “Forgive me, my dear, I meant the three of you.”

  Diana was leaving earlier than the others to deliver Leda to the theatre. She was standing at the front door, waiting for the star of the evening to make her descent. “Let’s move it along, Ms. Bernhardt,” she called, “the curtain’s going up.”

  Leda came downstairs looking deeply troubled. “I’m going to lay a big egg,” she said.

  The four family members in the front hall all chirped reassuring noises — “You’ll be fine,” “This is your big night,” “You’ll knock ’em dead,” “Don’t be silly,” or words to that effect since it was hard to separate the various encouragements.

  Leda paused two steps from the bottom and gave them all a cheeky grin. “See? Act-ing!”

  Her audience applauded dutifully. Orwell’s pocket sang out.

  “Da-ad,” Leda pointed at him. “Give me that!”

  “It’s work,” he said.

  “I’m setting it to vibrate. If it goes off in the middle of my big scene I’ll just die a hideous death right there in front of everybody.”

  Orwell handed it over and Leda pressed the necessary buttons before handing it back. “Brennan,” he said. “Stacy? Where are you?”

  “They’re at the front gate,” Diana said. “Three of them.”

  Stacy, Adele and Constable Maitland were standing by Stacy’s car with the four-ways flashing. Orwell looked them over. “Good evening, Detectives, Constable, what brings you this far south? Nothing dire, I hope.”

  “We may have located Dr. Ruth-Wisneski or whoever she is,” Stacy said.

  “Go on.”

  “She may be in a farmhouse in Yelverton.”

  “And?”

  Adele stepped forward. “And she isn’t who she says she is, and her husband isn’t who he says he is, and they may or may not have kidnapped one of your citizens and we were going to pay them a visit, but we figured we should check with you in case you wanted to call in the OPP.”

  It was a question worthy of some thought and Orwell took his time thinking it through. “Do we have any evidence of a crime?”

  “Got a helluva lot of circumstance,” Adele said.

  “Nothing that would get Dockerty PD, or OPP, or Metro a warrant?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Nothing that would justify us charging in with lights flashing and weapons drawn?”

  “No, Chief,” said Stacy.

  “So we could characterize this as a ‘friendly visit’ to satisfy your curiosity, right? One of our citizens is missing and we’re mildly concerned about her. If she’s been invited out for dinner and an evening of Scrabble or charades then fine, no harm done. Certainly no need to raid the place.”

  “It’ll be a friendly visit, Chief,” Stacy said.

  “Good. Good. Then you have my blessing. Although I’m not certain it’s mine to give, but under the circumstances, and considering that there may be a time factor, I think it will be okay if you should drop by. Politely.”

  “Wanna come, Chief?” Adele asked.

  “As much as I might enjoy the visit I don’t think it’s appropriate in this situation. You will of course call me forthwith should the status change.”

  “Of course, Chief,” Stacy said.

  “Tread lightly now,” Orwell said.

  Diana and Leda were driving up the lane toward the gate as the police car pulled away. Orwell swung the gate wide for them. He leaned into the passenger side window to give Leda a kiss. “Roy Rawluck says merde,” he said.

  Leda was pumped, all she could do was nod.

  The cruiser went in one direction, his two daughters in the other, and Orwell stood by the gate, feeling conflicted about his plans for the evening.

  Frogs were singing behind the barn. Hundreds of them. Deep-throated croaking and high-pitched warbling. A night chorus, non-stop, unmusical, but somehow comforting. Life was all around her.

  She crept along the side of the barn and crouched in the darkness behind a concrete silo. She was out. Free, or as free as she could be in the middle of nowhere without transportation, or any idea of exactly where in the middle of nowhere she was. The farmhouse was twenty metres or so across a gravel lane. Most of the lights were concentrated in a room at the back. People were moving abo
ut inside. A few hundred metres to the left, she could make out lights speeding by left and right. The rate they were travelling in both directions told her it was a highway. The moon was rising. That would be east, or a bit southeast this time of year, that meant the highway was running east-west. That was a start. It meant she was on the south side of the highway, but whether she was north or south of Dockerty she did not know. The bigger question was, how was she going to get there?

  What did it matter? Getting away from here was the only important part. So why was she not running? Why was she not taking off across that field, straight for the highway? Flag down a car, get a lift to somewhere, anywhere, phone police, that was the only sensible plan. Why was she still crouching in the shadows looking at the farmhouse? Well, there was the matter of her suitcase in the back of that car, the one with the two nice Chanel suits and the little black Dior and Louie Grova’s $5,000 stuck in the toe of a shoe. It would be a shame to leave that behind. But much more than that, there was a deep and inescapable conviction that she had to know who they were. All the years of running and hiding, first from this one, then a different one — if it was ever going to end, she would need to know who was chasing her. The black detective was dead, but it did not end there. That meant that someone had been in control of him, someone who knew what he had done, someone blackmailing him. And they had been doing it for a long time. Perhaps from the beginning. Sergei? She didn’t think Sergei had the guts for that. Lorna? Perhaps, but there had been someone else in the room with them, someone who did not speak and did not want to be recognized.

  She was still clutching the chair leg with the jagged stub sticking out of the middle. It felt good in her hand. She knew she could use it. She would not hesitate. No more inattention, no more blind trust.

  She had not heard any barking all afternoon. That was good. They did not have a dog. People with dogs are rooted. These people were transient, they would not linger. Once they had what they wanted, once she was out of the picture, they would be gone. And she would most likely be buried in the wetland behind the barn with a chorus of frogs to sing her death song.