The Night Bell

by Inger Ash Wolfe

  Hazel had seen in her mother’s eyes that she’d lied. His own mother had needed proof, and Hazel would never forget this. She was the only one who believed in Alan. She was the only friend he had in the world.

  ] 25 [

  Monday evening

  An hour after being abandoned by Cutter at the roadside, Wingate was picked up by a pair of his colleagues from Fort Leonard.

  It was humiliating to ride in the back of an OPS vehicle, although he noted the seats were pretty comfortable. He asked the constables to contact Hazel Micallef and she’d explain and get them to take him down to Port Dundas. But they weren’t having it. No badge, no radio, empty holster. In addition to this, they weren’t too keen on helping a Port Dundas gumshoe – if that, in fact, was what he was – since his job was a lot safer than theirs. Half of Fort Leonard’s cops were being redeployed to Port Dundas; the fate of the rest remained up in the air.

  They took him to their station house, where a man with an air of dreamy distraction took his statement. Wingate told the truth. There was no point now in finessing it: he was done.

  Maybe it was for the best. He had not yet passed a day since he’d woken up from his coma when he felt safe. He felt a constant shadow on him and he called it dread. He had wanted to die when they’d killed his lover, David, and he’d wanted to murder as well, but he had never feared being dead until that long night that followed being buried alive. Not the night itself, but the featureless sleep of coma, when he was dead to himself, unaware. A not-thing. Waking from that, his mind was changed, even more so than his body had been. Sometimes the dread was like awe. He’d been thinking that he was in an early stage of madness and perhaps everyone would know that now.

  Hazel told them to hold on to him until morning then put him on the train. She did not want to speak to him. The station house had a quiet room with a cot. They gave him a cold can of Coke, a bag of ketchup chips, and a microwave pizza. Afterward, he had indigestion.

  The groundbreaking for Gateway Plaza was set for next afternoon. Fittingly, it was the day before Hallowe’en, and it was even money that Chip Willan would come dressed as a pirate. It was an occupational hazard, seeing Willan in costume the week of Hallowe’en. Those on active duty, and those with ranks above constable, were expected to attend. All others were encouraged. “The union’s line,” Kraut Fraser said, “is that on-duty officers should attend the ribbon cutting except if it would interfere with their duties, and off-duty personnel are invited and encouraged to attend.” He held his hands up for silence. “If you don’t wanna go, find something necessary to do, but –” and here he reached out to stop Hazel from rushing past “– all ranked officers above constable will show their support.”

  “I’m going to pick up Wingate at the train station.”

  “He’s not on today.”

  “I know that.”

  “You’ll be at the groundbreaking, though. Two p.m.”

  “Yes,” she said, exasperated with him. She pushed the door to the rear lot open a little too hard and it banged. She drove to the train station feeling so livid she imagined slapping Wingate’s face. He was finished if she told Greene.

  He came out of the tiny brick train station with his uniform in a cloth Loblaws shopping bag. He hadn’t slept. She felt a pang for him that doused her rage and she leaned over to open the passenger door.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “There’s something very wrong with you, James.”

  “I know.”

  She put the radio on quietly and drove up to Main Street. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

  “Don’t get into trouble for my sake.”

  “But why did you go up there?”

  He couldn’t make words for a moment. “I wanted to do my job.”

  “Your job is recovering. You know that.”

  “No,” he said. “My job is police detective.”

  She stopped a couple of streets away from his apartment and turned to face him. “What did you find out?”

  “Cutter didn’t kill the Fremonts.”

  “He told you that.”

  “Yes.”

  “You believe him?”

  “He was pretty proud of himself for what he had done. So, yes. He denied Givens, too. He wants us to solve the case before he lets Renald go. But Yoshida told me something.”

  “What?”

  “Your theory, about someone practising eugenics? It might be right.”

  “Go on.”

  He told her about Merchant and his organization. She’d heard of Merchant because he’d endowed a wing of the college in Mayfair. “Yoshida gave me some bulletins that they published there. I have them in the bag in my cruiser. You recovered my cruiser?”

  “Yes. Lucky for you.”

  “Merchant was a public figure. Yoshida says he saw him at Dublin Home. He says he looked like the man pictured in the bulletin.”

  “I’ll take those and Fraser can go through them.”

  “Hazel,” he said. “Please. Let me finish. I won’t leave the apartment.”

  “How can I possibly –?”

  “It doesn’t help the case for me to hand over my work when I’m just putting things together.”

  “But you’re coming apart!”

  The motor was still running. Hazel turned it off.

  “I’m almost finished tracing the names of the survivors,” Wingate pleaded. “There are already another dozen from Dublin Home, and some of them will be witnesses, too. Let me finish and I’ll go back to Toronto with Michael. That’s what he’s been asking me to do. I’ll do it when the case is done. Please, Hazel.”

  The day started grey and threatening, but by the time two o’clock came around, the sky had cleared. Under a large tent hastily erected in case of rain, Charles Willan was sitting in a throne-like chair on a raised platform, together with a half-dozen dignitaries. Instead of a costume, he was wearing his serious, metallic grey suit that Hazel thought made him look appropriately robotic. In front of the platform, a polite crowd was listening to the mayor extol the many benefits that the new plaza would bring not just to the town but to the province as a whole. Beside Willan, the local MPP – a round, gleaming Tory who was a fixture at such events – was nodding along, a grin glued in place.

  After the mayor spoke, the developer expounded not briefly enough on what an exciting step forward in design the plaza would be. That made Hazel peer more closely at the billboard-sized rendering of the development that had been erected where the entrance would go. It looked the same to her as any other plaza: a sprawl of stuccoed boxes hemming a parking lot. The one in the drawing had boxes with green roofs, but Hazel couldn’t tell if the green was supposed to be grass or metal shingles. She twisted around to see who else from the station had shown up to do their duty here until Fraser nudged her. Willan was standing up to speak. He glanced at some notes he then tucked into his pocket, clutched the edges of the lectern, and switched on a smile. “Thank you, thank you,” he said to the silent gathering. “What a proud day it is for all us witnessing it, eh?”

  A partial smattering of applause.

  “This is a moment in history. We are sharing a historical moment together. This afternoon we will mark the beginning of a new future as a community, a county, and a police force!”

  They had been lectured about pride, and so this time the police in the crowd led the clapping. Charles S. Willan beamed. He explained how the officers of OPS Central were like spies who hadn’t been let in out of the cold yet. He was here to change that, to bring policing into the twenty-first century. The new North–Central police division symbolized that, by being at the heart of the innovative Gateway Plaza. “Come in from out of the cold, OPS Central Division. Come to the heart of Westmuir. Come to Gateway Plaza and be at the hub, where everything happens.”

  “Is it a heart or a hub?” said Fraser in Hazel’s ear. “An ass or a teacup?”

  “Shh. I’m listening to the pontiff.”

  A voice shou
ted: “When you fire half of Fort Leonard, will we get driving allowances so we can work at the new Walmart in Port Dundas?” Willan registered the interruption with a flash of teeth and then he stepped away from the lectern.

  After final remarks by the mayor, the five dignitaries descended the platform and were ushered over to a patch of dirt where each was handed a small ceremonial shovel by one of three little girls lost in their frills and two boys uncomfortable in boxy suits. The crowd ooohed, then the men jabbed their shovels into ground that had already been loosened. Almost in unison, they turned dirt, grinning for the cameras gathered around them.

  There was muted applause and someone shouted “YEAH!” but that was all the celebration that took place. The gathering immediately began to lose its coherence. Willan bent to say something to the MPP, then stepped into the crowd with his hand extended.

  Behind Hazel in the tent, a man in a pair of filthy overalls and a yellow helmet came up to the microphone. “The, uh, mayor was supposta say our permit is live as of the hour of noon and we’re gonna do some blastin’, folks. Stick around if you want to see sompin’ cool!” Willan intercepted the man as he stepped away, and snarled a couple of words into his ear before pushing him back toward the microphone. “Sorry, folks,” he said, “I meant the deputy commissioner. Of police, I was supposta say.”

  Fans of loud noises seemed to be changing their minds about going home. The average age in this group was thirty. The others – mostly in uniform – left in a cloud of murmurs. Willan came to where Hazel was standing with Fraser and she touched her cap. He hardly acknowledged her, brushing past and looking for hands to shake. The crowd had been made up of anyone who cared to witness the historic moment, including prominent businesspeople (those who had to make nice at such events to ensure themselves a slice of the pie), a couple of local sports celebrities, and Mayfair’s obnoxious morning show duo, Sally and Gonzo Pete. These two were recording something for the radio’s Web page. Sally, the pretty half of the duo, on the mic: “Whaddya say we spin some tunes to blast by? Or are we blasted already?” There was a big cry of approval. Now Hazel understood what this was: the crowd that remained was here because of a radio contest. “Who’s gonna be 107 the Thunder’s Plunger Pusher?”

  Another huge cry. Ray drifted over to where she was. “You can watch this live on the Internet,” he said. “I heard about it on television. One of those plungers will set off the ceremonial first blast.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and looked on with nauseated horror. “The people who listen to this radio station will do anything for fun.”

  “The winning plunger gets three thousand bucks and a year’s worth of cinnamon buns from the bakery,” he told her.

  “What is defined as a year’s worth?”

  “Exactly.”

  Sally called: “Who are our three lucky plungers, girls and boys?”

  The other half of the duo, Gonzo Pete, stood with the contestants. He looked nothing like his radio voice. For one thing, he was white. “Imma got me a trio of plunger-pushing plenitude and pulchritude!”

  “Haw haw,” said Sally. The three contestants were given hard hats.

  “Jesus,” said Hazel, “this is fucked.” She strode forward, toward the woman who was speaking into the camera.

  “These three lucky plungers are about to see – oh … yes?” Hazel barged into the shot. “Oh, excuse me!” She laughed. “I think I’m being arrested! Officer, are you going to arrest me live on air?”

  “No,” Hazel said. “Can I have that microphone for just thirty seconds?”

  “Of course! People, everyone, this is a policewoman! She wants to talk to you all for thirty seconds, OK? I think one of you left your lights on!”

  Gales of laughter. Hazel took the mic. Instead of facing the crowd, she spoke into the camera. “For all you people out there watching a hill get blown up on the Internet, I want to ask if any of you even know what it’s called?” A few answers lifted out of the crowd, some of them correct. She turned to acknowledge them. “That’s right,” she said. “We still call it the Lion’s Paw. My mother, who grew up in this town, says her own mother called it that. People have been walking its bluffs since long before there were any towns or cities in this country.

  “When I was a kid, you could see Highway 41 rolling away from the toe of the paw. And you could walk around, away from town, and look over the marshes, or you could come back where you started and look down into Port Dundas, founded 1841. And now someone’s going to blow it up. I hope you’re pleased with yourselves.”

  The crowd roared with delight. Hazel passed the microphone back.

  “Awesome!” Sally shouted. Gonzo Pete primed the dynamite plungers like a race official with a gun, and set the first contestant to her plunger. People put their fingers in their ears.

  Hazel retreated to stand with Ray. “Do you know Gonzo Pete got his explosives licence just so he could prime those plungers?” Ray said in her ear. “What do you think they’ll call it now?”

  “The Lion’s Stump.”

  Sally wished the contestant luck and counted her down from three. The girl plunged and there was an enormous, ear-splitting explosion.

  Hazel gasped. A cloud of dust rose before the crowd and chunks of stone began to rain down.

  It took a couple of moments before she heard the screaming, and then people started stampeding for the road. The debris smacked into the dirt and asphalt and some people fell to the ground. A rock the size of a dinner bun smashed down in front of them, and Ray grabbed Hazel’s elbow and pulled her back.

  She tasted dirt and heard people shouting and calling out for each other. Ray’s weight pushed down on her. “Not so hard!”

  “Geddown, geddown!” he said, out of breath. She allowed him to put her on the ground.

  “How deep were those fucking charges?”

  “I don’t …” he said. “I don’t.” He was becoming heavier.

  “Ray?” She pushed him off and he fell onto his back. Blood trickled from his hairline. “Ray! Oh my god!” She scrambled to her feet. “I need help!” she shouted. “Somebody call an ambulance!”

  People ran past her in both directions to escape or to help, and she saw bodies lying on the ground on the grassy verge below the hill. Sally staggered up to standing from where she’d been blown flat, and shook off the dirt and pebbles that matted her blonde locks. She wanted to keep going. She rolled her index finger forward in the air and her cameraman mounted his camera to his shoulder. More people were running toward the blast site now than were running away. Hazel followed the eye of the crowd. At the base of the blasted paw, people scrambled over fallen rock and climbed upward. “You!” she called to a paramedic. “Come here!” Ray coughed and lurched halfway up. “Stay where you are!” she said. “Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” he croaked.

  She left him and broke into a jog to get to the front of the gawkers. Above the scattered, broken rock, Hazel saw the cameraman balancing on a stone ledge, his lens flaring with sun. Above him, Sally had a serious look on her face as she talked into the mic, her other hand gesturing over and over to something Hazel still could not see.

  She clambered up to where the girl stood.

  “You again?”

  Hazel paid her no attention. She stood with her back to the camera, her heart pounding in her throat, and gazed upon the upper half of a skeleton: an unmistakable ruffle of human ribs arrayed in gentle arcs with shabby tufts of cloth still clinging to bone. Through the ribs, she saw a shamble of vertebrae and she traced those up with her eyes until they fell on the empty, grimacing skull.

  ] 26 [

  Tuesday, October 30, afternoon

  Hazel closed her front door on the world and stared down the empty hallway. She stripped to her blouse and underwear and left her dirt-covered clothing on the mat. She had already shaken her hair out in the driveway and she ran her fingers through the gritty strands.

  She tiptoed down the hall to the
bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes seemed bright, shining out of the grime. This must be what the survivors of Vesuvius looked like, she thought. She turned on the hot and began to wash her face. Black water rushed down the drain.

  Ray was OK. He’d been struck by something large enough to produce a wobbly lump the size of a golf ball on his head. She’d last seen him in the back of an ambulance. Others were hurt, too. Luckily, no one had been killed. The injured had lain scattered around, some of them badly banged up, the paramedics in their yellow jackets moving among them like bumblebees.

  She opened the mirrored cabinet door and looked for some ibuprofen. She’d made a point of keeping any painkillers – OTC or not – upstairs. She’d been thorough; there was nothing there. When she closed the mirror, her mother was standing in it. “Oh! Jesus Christ.”

  “You’re a sight,” Emily said. “Don’t you dare use one of those hand towels. Those are for guests. What on earth have you been doing?”

  “I was at the groundbreaking. And then they had this … contest to see who would start the blasting.”

  “What nonsense are you talking?”

  Hazel smelled cigarette smoke. “Mom, are you smoking?”

  “No. Paula Spencer is smoking.”

  “Who?”

  Emily shook her head like she was giving up. “You’ve met Paula a thousand times. I couldn’t find my cigs, so she came over. She still smokes.”

  Paula Spencer had been one of her mother’s old friends. They’d played cards together until just a few years ago. But Paula Spencer was dead.

  Emily said, “So where are they? My cigarettes?”

  Hazel folded the hand towel over its rail. Without looking at her mother, she said, “I think I saw them in the kitchen.” In the mirror, she saw her mother leave the bathroom. Hazel followed her, mind racing.

  “I don’t see them in here,” Emily called from the kitchen.

  “No? Oh, right! I think I saw them upstairs,” Hazel said. “Why don’t I go get them.”