The Lost Ones

by Sheena Kamal

  “You know, you don’t have to work for an intelligence agency to want to get through to people,” he says to me now. “Talking usually helps.”

  “Does it help you?”

  He’s silent for a moment because he knows that for people like us, talking accomplishes nothing. “Why am I here, Nora?” He eyes my worn sweatpants and the tears in my hooded sweatshirt. “Do you need money?”

  I hold out a scrap of paper. “I need you to check this plate number.” It would be a simple matter to ask Stevie to filter this through his contacts, but I don’t want him or anyone else at the office to start asking questions about Bonnie. The less they know about my life, the better. For them, anyway. For reasons I have chosen not to explore, plausible deniability has always been a concern of mine.

  He laughs quietly to himself. The paper hangs between us like a spurned offering. I don’t remove my hand. He stops laughing. “You’re serious.”

  “A girl is missing,” I tell him. “That car was parked on the street last night watching her house and the man inside wasn’t a cop.”

  “The police . . .”

  “They don’t give a shit. She’s not blond enough.”

  He flinches at this and has the decency to look ashamed. He is with the force, after all. I should apologize, but I don’t because we both know there’s some truth to this. There’s a whole highway in the north of the province stained by the tears of indigenous girls and women who weren’t blond enough to matter, whose families are still looking for justice. This lack of justice isn’t isolated to a single highway, either. It is more like a cancer that has spread through every segment of Canada’s social and political systems, generating press during election times and buzzwords like “the missing” and “murdered.”

  “Why do you care?” he says finally.

  It’s a good question. I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. I don’t tell him that she has my eyes, and that maybe that alone is enough to seal her fate. To deny her justice. So I shrug and wait. Part of me hopes that he’ll refuse, if only because it means that I’ve at least made an attempt—even though I don’t have to. The child is a problem I gave to people who were allegedly better suited to deal with her. It turns out that they have failed the both of us.

  “How old is the girl?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Is she missing or did she run away?”

  “The parents think she ran away, but now she’s missing.”

  His grim smile confirms my suspicions. “I can see why they didn’t take it seriously. That’s not a good sign.”

  He hasn’t told me anything that I don’t already know. “I didn’t come for a lecture. I just want to know who this car is registered to.”

  Brazuca takes the paper and blinks down at it.

  “Make and model are at the bottom there,” I point out.

  “Fine, but after this you can’t call me anymore. Let the police do their work. They’re a lot better at this than you might think.”

  I laugh at this, quietly and to myself, and then realize he’s serious. How quickly the tables turn.

  12

  I look at my past self with pity and more than a small dose of shame. The Nora of twenty years ago, that singing fool, was like a character in a particularly grotesque cartoon where dreams were possible and even dishonest people could help achieve them if they were getting something out of it, too.

  Pathetic.

  But now I am a survivor. There’s a particular world-weariness that comes along with this. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t seen it all—I still have within me the capacity to be surprised—but I’ve seen a hell of a lot. So it doesn’t throw me to see a beautiful red-haired woman kissing a man who isn’t her husband in the parking garage beneath her workplace. This is most likely why she lied about being at work the day that her daughter went missing. She was probably somewhere else, doing something similar to what she’s doing now. I watch her and wonder, does she feel guilty that she could not provide a happy home for her daughter? That her family was not enough and she had to go looking elsewhere for satisfaction? Now that I am aware that Bonnie was so restless in their home that she ran away, it’s not exactly something I can forget. Her unhappiness eats away at me.

  Huddled in a dark corner, I don’t even blink.

  I look for pointers on technique that I will probably never employ again. He reaches his hand inside her jacket but she pushes him away and gets into her car. She drives off, completely unaware that she’s being watched by the man she has left hanging, the cameras in the parking garage, and me.

  13

  People think I should be some sort of tracker because of my father’s bloodlines and my appearance. They couldn’t be more off the scent. My heritage is so mixed I wouldn’t know where to begin. I would get lost in a forest easier than a tourist with a malfunctioning GPS. I hate the smell of pine and damp earth. Not to mention the various bears, cougars, wolves, coyotes, snakes, spiteful plant organisms, and stinging insects. No woodland romps for me, thank you very much. Give me a dirty street filled with vagrants and littered with needles any day. I know the predators there and they don’t bother me anymore.

  I sit outside the apartment building in Surrey and watch Bidi’s cousin Amir leave for work two hours before his shift. Through the thick glass windows of the lobby, I can see him glance around before coming out the door. Although cautious before he exits the building, once he is out he moves quickly, throwing anxious looks over his shoulder.

  This time I don’t follow Amir. This time I get a coffee from the shop down the street and wait for a glimpse of the bogeyman haunting his waking moments, causing him to cast fearful glances about and leave home so much earlier than he needs to. After an hour, I am rewarded. An SUV with tinted windows eases into the back parking lot. A young native man comes out of the building and hands a garbage bag over to the young white man in the driver’s seat. Three Asian boys and a black girl walk by, deliberately ignoring the entire exchange. The two over at the car speak for a moment and then the car pulls away. I would bet my next paycheck that bag is filled with greasy money.

  Even though I see that there is now an organizational element to this case, I have to give a grudging respect to what’s happening here. Only in Canada can you find gangs not based on ethno-cultural lines drawn in the sand. These youth are embracing the thirst for commerce that unites us all.

  I watch the kid saunter back into the building as if he owns it and wonder where his people are from. But if anyone could tell, it wouldn’t be me. And I don’t have the right to speculate, either. That connection was lost a long time ago. It’s as dead as my father. And if my father were here today, seeing this native kid in his multi-ethnic gang, he might say that at least this boy seems to belong somewhere.

  Look at how well assimilation can work.

  If you think residential schools were the only way the Canadian government gutted indigenous communities, you’d be wrong. They went at it all kinds of ways, just to see what stuck. In the fifties, sixties, and into the seventies, they had a scoop, by which I mean they scooped up kids from indigenous families and put them up for adoption. Some of them even went to America, Europe, or as far away as New Zealand, with no real memories of who they were or where they were from.

  So when my father eventually found his way back to Canada from Detroit he was as rootless as they came. He was born in Manitoba and he could have been part of any of the sixty-three First Nations communities there, or métis, or mixed in some other way, but I don’t know if he ever found out for certain. Those records had been long lost, even before he returned to the country of his birth. I can’t say that he ever felt as comfortable in his skin as that kid appeared to be and it’s the one connection that we share.

  He was just as much of an outsider as I am.

  As I stand watching, the man in the SUV pauses to make a phone call and then drives off. Like Lynn in the parking garage, he doesn’t notice me. He probably wouldn’t care if he did.
I walk away feeling like I’ve just found a key piece of the puzzle. These guys seem to be low-level dealers, part of a larger organization. Bidi’s cousin Amir doesn’t strike me as the type to be in a gang, so it might be that he’s just an unfortunate tool who is merely being harassed by one. Because he knows something he shouldn’t and, if I had to take a stab in the dark, I’d say Harrison Baichwal knows the same thing.

  I get a text on my phone.

  Now.

  14

  This time I get to the lookout by the Lions Gate first, even though I’ve just spent about an hour in the gridlock that usually wraps itself around this part of the city. I stare out at the water and wonder where the black current is. Where the warmth is. The rain has stopped for now, but it still threatens to fall with even the slightest provocation.

  “Hey,” comes a soft voice behind me. Brazuca is on foot this time and looks more tired than ever. What I initially thought were signs of a hangover when I saw him last now seem to be closer to extreme fatigue. If possible, he’s even thinner than before. He’s clearly spiraling, and taking it out on his stomach rather than his liver this time.

  He grips the railing with his hands and stares over the edge and into the water below, as if it could unlock the mysteries of the world, if only he could speak its language. He doesn’t, and again he is a failure. It is almost eight and the people of the city have scattered to wherever it is that they go when they’re not clogging up the streets.

  “Do you have it?”

  He ignores the question. “Tell me about the girl.”

  I wasn’t planning on doing anything of the sort, about Bonnie, Everett, or Lynn, but there’s something calm and reassuring about the way that he asked. Up until now I was just a pain in the ass. Now I am a pain in the ass with something of interest.

  Or maybe it’s just the detective in him.

  I shrug. “I don’t know much about her. Only child. Parents are architects. Nice house in Kerrisdale. She took off a couple of weeks ago, but they think she never meant to stay away this long.”

  “Is this a Krushnik Investigations case or something you’re running with for Sebastian Crow?”

  Every muscle in my body goes rigid.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” he says. “I’ve known where you work for a while. I wasn’t going to bring it up, but you asking for this favor, out of the blue . . . not very anonymous, is it?”

  I see where he’s going with this. By giving him the plate number, I have invited him into my life. There is no more anonymity or privacy. Now we’re just alcoholics.

  “How did you know?”

  “I followed you last year. After you broke my nose. I thought I deserved an apology.”

  “But you never got up the courage to ask for one.”

  “It isn’t a matter of courage. I realized that an apology should be offered, not demanded.” This is a pointed jab, but it’s misplaced. I’ve never been one to hide behind manners. Good manners, though it can be wonderful to be on the receiving end of them, are deceiving. I have never forgotten that.

  “Whose car is it?” I ask. I get the feeling that he’s hiding something. That for him to be here instead of just picking up the phone and giving me a name means that what he found is unexpected. Or maybe he’s lonely. I suspect the former.

  He ignores my question once again. A massive tanker cuts through the sea in the distance, moving out with the tide. “Who’s the girl to you?”

  We stand there at the railing, not looking at each other, each staring out at the water. I consider lying but I can’t. I could settle for bullshitting but I don’t want to feel like an asshole. So I just stand and look over the railing until Brazuca shifts his weight and reaches a hand down to massage his knee.

  “It’s gonna rain again tonight,” he says, like an old man whose greatest pleasure is to predict the weather based on the status of his various injuries. Brazuca is somewhere in his forties and though he likes to pretend that he’s older than he appears, I know that this is merely a stalling tactic. I have to admit that there’s a certain charm to it. How easy it is to disarm someone with simple conversation about the weather.

  “It’s a Vancouver winter.” Meaning, get on with it, of course it’s going to rain.

  He doesn’t take the hint. For now he’s holding all the cards and is content to go his own pace, which, apparently, is glacial. “I’m thinking of moving somewhere hot. Where it never rains.”

  “I hear the Sahara is nice. Friendly scorpions.”

  A quick smile flashes across his face and then it’s gone. “Nora, the car is leased to WIN Security. It’s part of their motor pool.”

  “The private security firm?”

  “That’s the one. So, tell me. Is this really just about a runaway? Because I can’t for the life of me think of why they’d be interested in this. When it comes to the security business, they’re high-end. They do mostly corporate work now.”

  “But they also do private investigations?”

  “I’d assume so, but mostly for their corporate clients. Finding missing girls isn’t exactly in their wheelhouse. And they’re not cheap, either. You said the car was watching the house? Their surveillance teams are top-notch and you’d be paying serious money for that kind of service. Just to see if a kid comes home.”

  Everett and Lynn seemed well-off, but nothing about them screamed serious money. “Can you find out what WIN Security is doing there?”

  “No, that wasn’t our deal, remember? I run the plates for you and you let this go.”

  “I never agreed to that.”

  “Fine, then let me help.”

  I look at him now. He meets my gaze and I can see that he’s dead serious.

  “Thanks for the information,” I say, turning away.

  “Where are you going—hey! Come back here!”

  He calls after me and for a moment it looks like he’s tempted to give chase, but I’m much faster than him. Besides, it’s undignified for a man with a limp to run after a woman, especially if she is shouting, “I don’t want to buy drugs from you!”

  Though this statement is misleading, technically it’s true. But I’m not proud of it, all the same.

  15

  A sedan is parked outside the Kerrisdale house. Different spot, different car, but it’s the same man slumped in the driver’s seat. This time he is popping blueberries from a stainless steel container. How very eco-friendly of him. I take a moment to appreciate his commitment to the planet. He’s listening to a replay of last night’s Canucks game over the radio and only barely looks up when Lynn leaves the house, not bothering to lock the door behind her. As soon as Lynn pulls off in the Audi parked in the driveway, the not-cop yawns and searches for another healthy snack in the glove compartment. I take the opportunity to walk through the front door.

  Canadians tend to be complacent when their loved ones are at home. As though the valuables should be locked up while everyone is out, but not while they are inside. If my intent was criminal, now would be the perfect time to strike. The shower is on upstairs, so I know Everett will make an appearance shortly, should I desire to assault him. Since I’m only here to snoop, I go to the basement, pass the laundry room, and hide in the storage area.

  There I find row upon row of neatly organized shelves. Three lives, all packed away in a discernible order. I admire the precision it takes to sort through one’s life like this. Taxes? Top left. Sporting gear? Bottom right. Winter clothes? Center stage.

  One storage box on the top shelf is askew and upon closer examination, I find that it’s the only one not labeled. Inside is a locked fireproof box. The lock on the outside is easy enough to pick. I always keep a few hairpins on me anyway, just in case a situation like this presents itself. Normally I have no desire to pull apart people’s lives, though Leo says I have a certain knack for it. But when you give up on your dream of being a blues singer, you have to hang your hat somewhere. This is Vancouver, after all, and you’re going to have a hat, or a
hood on a sturdy raincoat that won’t go flying about, or a decent umbrella. Fate presented me with the journalist, who led me to Seb and Leo. They don’t ask where I learned to use these hairpins, don’t know that during basic training in the Canadian Forces I used to sleep next to a degenerate like myself, barely eighteen, who could open any door she wanted instead of waiting around for it to open on its own.

  The lock on the box has been tampered with, but from the scratches on the exterior of it I can tell that it was an amateur’s work. Inside are adoption documents and copies of the application that Everett and Lynn sent in to the agency. Here I find letters about how well suited the Walshes would be for children. How in love and well employed they were. How much money they had in their bank account. Beneath these papers, I find Bonnie’s birth certificate, the one with my name on it. Just as she must have found it when she went looking. Their self-delusion in keeping it here is astonishing. Of course if she were to start looking, she’d start here.

  I stare at my name scratched on that piece of paper and feel the coffee I’d had this morning curdle in my stomach. I hadn’t wanted to see her at the hospital when she was born because I hadn’t wanted to have her at all. When the nurse swaddled her in a blanket and tried to hand her to me, I turned away and pretended that they—all of them, the doctor, nurses, orderlies, the baby—didn’t exist. I have tried to forget everything about that day, but the memories are starting to come back in vivid flashes of sound and color. Her cries. My exhaustion. The overpowering numbness in my lower extremities. It was easy to give her away then, easy to pass her on to a better life than I had to offer. A better life with these people, whom I’d never met or even knew the names of. I had no regrets about this at the time. It was a relief. But now . . . now all I feel is anger that they didn’t keep up their end of the bargain. If there is one firm rule in this world, it’s that when it comes to children, promises must be kept.