The Night Bell

by Inger Ash Wolfe

  “Why does this matter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does knowing doctors’ salaries in 1958 move our case along?”

  “None of them were on staff. That’s what I mean.”

  “Fine. Janitorial staff. Did you find any?”

  “Some.”

  “Any night guards or overnight staff?”

  “I can’t tell from just this.”

  “OK.” She thought about it for a moment. Then she started flipping pages again. “How many doctors?”

  “About a dozen.”

  “Why aren’t they all together in here?”

  “I can refax –”

  “Never mind, I’m pulling them out. Donald Rosen. Frank Inman. Frances Kelly.”

  “Which Francis?”

  “The female.”

  “Female doctor? Hold on, I found her,” he said. “Frances. Not a doctor, a nurse. And there’s a Peter Lynch. Back and forth in the region for twenty years. Frequently at both Dublin and Charterhouse. Dale Whitman –”

  “Dale Whitman?” Hazel said. “I knew him. I grew up with his daughter, Gloria. We lived on the same street.”

  “Do you remember him?”

  “Oh yeah. I remember him well. He was what people used to call a ‘community leader.’ I think I even remember that he volunteered his time at various homes in the county.”

  “He didn’t volunteer. He was paid.”

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong about it if he was. He raised Gloria alone. I liked him, but last time I saw him I’m sure it was fifty years ago. And I was a kid.” She leaned back in her chair to flip the stapled mass of paper back onto her desk. “I guess it would have been pretty good cover, being a community leader. With all these hockey coaches and priests, how could you be surprised by anything?”

  Hazel checked with her contact in Toronto about Claude Maracle’s DNA. They’d put it on rush, but they still wouldn’t know anything until Monday at the earliest. It could make one boy real and prove the effectiveness of their investigative methods, but it still wouldn’t bring them any closer to who had put the bones there. Or to getting back to the crime scene. She began to realize that the cohort of boys who’d known Eloy Maracle was as important to find as the victims. Most of the former wards of Dublin Home would be in their sixties and seventies now; it wouldn’t be difficult to locate a couple of them. She called the archives and put Leon Cutter on it.

  Hazel got up from her desk and shut the door to her office. She turned off the light. A chair wedged between file cabinets served as her thinking spot, and right now the setting sun was picking it out in a column of light. She sat down in it and closed her eyes.

  Bones are found in a field on which an expensive development has been partially built. The people who bring this to light are murdered. Why? To warn others to keep quiet? And Givens hands files over to the police that can identify who might have something to lose if the development were revealed to be a crime scene. And he’s murdered. And who knows what will happen to anyone else who helps?

  “Jesus,” she said aloud. “Honey Eisen.” She got out her notebook, looked up Eisen’s number, and dialled it. The clock on her wall said 7:10 p.m. There was no answer. She burst from her office and crossed the pen to Ray’s. “Now I have something for you.” She tossed him his jacket. “Get mad at me later. We might have another body.”

  “Let me guess: we have to go to Tournament Acres.”

  “I figure if you’re in the car with me, I’m not breaking the rules.”

  She told herself the look on his face had a hint of frank admiration in it.

  The drive, at the speed Hazel was going, took thirty-four minutes. She had Ray call down twice on the way, but Eisen didn’t answer either time. When they got to the corner of Sam Snead and Pebble Beach, she stopped for the Mountie and rolled her window down. “I spoke to Superintendent Scott,” she told him, not lying this time. “We’re going to drive around a bit so I can show my CO what I was talking to the super about.”

  “Oh, do you want me to call him?”

  “No, that’s OK. We’ll just pop in later. No need to bother him.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Hazel drove north up Pebble Beach until she was out of view of the gate and parked the cruiser. She dialled Honey Eisen one more time.

  “When did you talk to the superintendent?” Ray asked her.

  “No answer,” Hazel said. “Earlier today. I came down. Nice guy. Not very helpful.”

  “Hazel, I –”

  “I didn’t enter Tournament Acres, I just went into the RCMP command vehicle. I didn’t break any rules. Let’s go.”

  He glowered at her, but he got out of the car. They walked up to Eisen’s house. It was dark inside behind drawn blinds. Hazel went up the front stoop and looked in one of the side windows: she saw nothing. She knocked on the door and then rang the doorbell.

  Ray stood back. She tried the door and it opened. “Aw, shit.” They both drew but kept their safeties on. She put her finger against her lips and held the door for him as they stepped into the darkened house. She clicked on her flashlight and led the way down the hall, where Mrs. Eisen took her when she’d come to visit. The kitchen and the dining room were both empty, chairs pushed in under tables, like storeroom displays. Hazel beckoned Ray toward the bottom of the stairs.

  “I hear something,” he said. He stood on the bottom step and listened with a strained look. “Can you hear that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re hearing.”

  “It’s a hissing sound.”

  He snapped on his flashlight and began to climb the stairs. She followed behind and at the landing she heard the sound as well. It was coming from a room at the end of the hallway, behind a closed door.

  “Do you smell gas?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “We should be careful, Ray, I don’t like this.”

  “Look,” he said, shining a hard circle of light onto the hallway runner. It picked out a crimson streak. “What’s that?”

  On her knees, she looked at it closely. “I don’t think it’s blood. It could be an old stain. It could be a flick of paint.”

  He picked out a couple more of these maroon-coloured streaks as they crept to the door at the end of the hallway. Hazel’s chest tightened. It was definitely a hiss, as if someone was slowly letting the air out of a big balloon. Ray paused at the door and leaned in to listen. “Mrs. Eisen? Are you in there?” Hazel came up beside him and rapped the door lightly.

  The hissing got louder. Was it a spraying sound? A white-noise machine? A voice choked with terror said, “Why are you here?” From within, a rough, low moan began to rise.

  They both took their safeties off and stepped back from the door. “Honey? It’s Hazel Micallef. Are you in there?” Now there was the sound of a struggle and items being banged around, and it resolved into a muffled voice shouting, “Hey! Get out! Get out of here!”

  Ray shouldered the door open, and Hazel came in behind him with her gun drawn and her light slashing across the darkened space. The beam fell on a bed alive with movement, a human form thrashing in the grip of a pale white serpent. Under the human shrieks, the hissing was louder and Hazel struggled to keep her beam on the forms wriggling in the bed. Then Ray found the light switch.

  Honey Eisen was half off the bed, screeching and hollering and kicking her legs in the sheets. The serpent was a medical hose attached at one end to a breathing machine and, at the other, to Honey Eisen’s face. She righted herself and stood before them and Hazel was reminded of the monster in the Alien movies. Eisen tore the mask off. “GOOD fucking SWEET baby Jesus! What the hell are you doing in my house?”

  ] 18 [

  Hazel goggled at the scene in front of her. Mrs. Eisen slept in only a nightshirt and as she shook her arms at the two of them, she flashed them her black and grey bush repeatedly. “Mrs. Eisen,” Hazel pleaded. “We’re really so sorry – it’s just we didn’t expect to find someone sleep
ing and there was this noise –”

  “What business is it of yours, missy, when I go to bed?” She turned on Ray, her face rigid in anger. “This is a lady’s personal bedroom, asshole. You want to see my tits too? Huh?”

  “Oh,” said Ray. “I’m so sorry. No. Um, Detective Inspector Mic –”

  “Get out!” the woman screamed. “How did you get in here, anyway?”

  “Your door was open,” said Ray, paralyzed.

  “And you just walked in! Into a private home. You know what? You give me a heart attack, and you’ll both be breaking rocks somewhere!”

  “We’re very sorry,” Ray stammered, backing out of the bedroom. He took Hazel by her arm to pull her out as well, but she stood her ground.

  “Look,” she said. Her tone of voice silenced both her CO and the thin woman in the nightshirt. She pointed at the east-facing window in the bedroom. There was a second OPS cruiser parked behind her own now. Hazel strode back into the hall.

  “Where are you going now?” shouted Honey Eisen. “Off to terrorize babies and kittens?”

  Ray followed her into the hall. “Hazel?”

  “I thought we were leaving. We’ve given our apologies – and again, Mrs. Eisen, our deepest apologies for disturbing you while we were in the process of ensuring you hadn’t been murdered by the same person who killed the Fremonts and now Brendan Givens – and we should go.”

  Ray stammered his objections while Honey Eisen pursued them down the stained runner. “I thought I was about to be raped!”

  “Again, very sorry!” said Hazel from the bottom of the stairs. Ray took the remaining steps two at a time and got to the front door before Hazel was through it. But then she came to a sudden stop in the doorway. Ray almost ran into her back.

  “Oh, fucking hell,” she said. He looked over her shoulder. On the other side of the road there was a man leaning against her cruiser. It was Chip Willan.

  “I’m going to guess this isn’t a coincidence,” Willan said. He offered Ray his hand. The way Willan offered a hand, you weren’t going to refuse it. He thrust it at you like a dagger. “You two playing around with radio frequencies?”

  “We were actually down here on Superintendent Scott’s recognizance,” Ray lied. Hazel felt briefly proud of him.

  “Is that how we meet here at Tournament Acres?” he said to Ray with a smile. “I thought you’d stood down.” Willan bent away to look down the street. “Who’s in trouble?”

  Hazel watched the two men carefully. She’d rarely seen them together, and to judge by the tension, they were either at loggerheads or they were trying not to say something in front of her.

  “How did you end up here?” Hazel asked.

  Willan pretended to notice her for the first time. “Well, I’m liaising with the local commander. Making sure they have everything they need.”

  “They’re the RCMP, sir. And the local commander is a superintendent. They already have everything, so I’m not sure why they need your assistance, sir.”

  He squared himself to her. “They asked for it. Who cleared you?”

  “She’s here on my recognizance,” said Ray.

  “And you are on Scott’s?”

  “Actually, your grandmother cleared us,” said Hazel. Both men looked at her blankly. “Page, right? Grammy Page?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Ray asked.

  “He’s an investor in Tournament Acres,” she said. “He’s got money in this place under the name of his dead granny.”

  Willan smiled beatifically.

  “What are you talking about?” Ray’s voice was choked with alarm.

  “Isn’t that right, Chip? It’s no skin off your knuckles if the RCMP keep the lid on what’s happening here. What a stroke of fortune!” Ray put his hand on her arm but Hazel shook him off. “They have Renald, and there are two freshly dead bodies on this property and one in Toronto. Is that OK with you, Chip?”

  It seemed to her that he wasn’t even working on a reply; he was already serene with some foregone conclusion. When a predator looks upon helpless prey, it can take its time. Play with it a while before dealing the death blow.

  Ray pulled her away. “Come on, Hazel.”

  Hazel remained silent until they were well up the 41, heading back to Port Dundas, and then she said: “Choose.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Prove to me that your interests lie with the department and not with collecting whatever prize Chip Willan has offered you.”

  He looked shocked. “Is that what you think of me? That I came out of retirement to collect a prize?”

  “What has he promised you when the new detachment opens? CO of the amalgamated OPS Central? A salary bump?”

  “It hasn’t been discussed yet. It’s more than a year away.”

  “Groundbreaking is Tuesday afternoon, though. It’s been decided already, all of it. And you’ve been told what you’ll get if you go along.”

  “Was that true?” he asked. “What you just accused Willan of?”

  “He’s got a vested interest in that place. I bet Tournament Acres was just a dry run for whatever the Ascot Group might have in mind for other fields in our county. Who knows what kinds of future contracts Willan might be looking at?”

  “You disagree with him,” he said. “That’s all this is. You have to let go of your conspiracy theories if you’re going to think straight.”

  “I still want you to choose.”

  “Between what and what?”

  “Being a cop or administrating for Chip Willan, whether you think you’ll be rewarded for it or not.”

  His expression clouded. “I don’t have to pass your tests anymore, Hazel. You have to pass mine.”

  As a peace offering, Ray Greene gave Hazel permission to find three of the living wards of Dublin Home. They had to be in Westmuir County, though, north of Dublin. He forbade her to investigate Willan, promising he would look into it himself. She didn’t believe him, but now at least the investigation into Dublin Home was resurrected.

  She returned to Mayfair first thing Friday morning. Putchkey held the front door open for her. He was agitated but doing his best to hide it. “Can I ask you something? Is there some kind of maniac on the loose?”

  “What do you know about maniacs, Mr. Putchkey?”

  “I hear a buncha people were killed over by Dublin.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I know people. Do you think we’re safe here? Members of the public use this office, this is a public place. Do you think we should close up until he’s found?”

  “Will you buzz me in so I can go see the person I have an appointment with?”

  “Oh, he’s late. Said he wouldn’t be in until lunchtime.”

  “Cutter?”

  “Yeah. He left you an envelope.” He went through the Employee’s Only door and into the back. “So we’re fine here then? Killer’s probably moved on, right?”

  “Can I have my envelope?”

  He gave it to her. Cutter had left some names for her. Three, just as she’d wanted: Rex Clemson, Rene Eppert, and Hibiki Yoshida.

  Mr. Rex Clemson lived a brief drive from the archives, in a trailer park. It was the lunch hour when she got there, and her stomach growled. She checked the address again and walked down the site to knock on number 5. The man who opened the door looked hard at Hazel through cloudy eyes. “I’m from the Port Dundas PD, sir. Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef. I’m wondering if I can talk to you about the Dublin Home for Boys.”

  The man in front of her was in his sixties, but he looked older. She showed him her badge, but his eyes were locked on her face. “What about it?”

  “You were there in the late fifties for about eighteen months. Is that right?”

  “Why are you interested?”

  “May I come in?”

  He shook his head. “Ask your questions from there.”

  “Did you know Eloy Miracle?”

  “No.”

  “Ho
w about Valentijn Deasún? Or Charles Shearing?”

  His face changed. Now he looked at her with suspicion. “How did you find me?”

  “I’m a police detective, Mr. Clemson. I can do that.”

  “But how did you know to look for me? Why did my name come up?”

  “May I come in?”

  “No.” She saw he wanted to close the door on her, but his eyes glowed with fearful curiosity. “Who sent you?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t sent by anyone. I was looking for survivors of a certain period at Dublin Home.”

  “And someone told you to come and see me?”

  “Mr. Clemson, I can’t tell you –”

  “Leon Cutter,” the man said. “Son of a bitch. Come in.” He held the door open and she entered, not without trepidation. The cramped trailer stank of marijuana. Clemson stood aside and she stepped forward to find herself standing beside the bed.

  “Why is Leon’s name the secret code?”

  “Leon is a righteous man. He told you to come see me?”

  “Yes.” He offered her a seat beside his muted television. He was watching Animal Rescue and out of the corner of her eye she could see a woman pulling a koi from a pool with her bare hands. A plate with a half-eaten sausage and slices of apple sat on the table in front of the couch. He went back around to his seat, moving with difficulty. She recognized his pain – he walked with a tilted head, an arm out at an odd angle to brace himself for every step because every step hurt. He walked like he was drunk. She guessed it was his L5 vertebra. “Who is Cutter to you?” she asked him.

  “He was one of my dorm mates at Dublin Home. So was Valentijn.”

  She blinked a few times, quickly rearranging things in her head. “Leon Cutter was at Dublin Home?”

  “That wasn’t his name. But yes.”

  “And Eloy Miracle?”

  “Yes,” said Clemson, looking away. “Charlie Shearing, too. He was a Blackfoot Indian. He wasn’t even from Ontario. But they took him anyway.”

  “Took him?”