by Mike Knowles
“That’s because I’m sneaky.”
Laverne laughed. “This is my first chance to see your dad today.” She held up a pair of nail clippers. “I was going to put on some music for him and cut his nails. I noticed they were getting long.”
Jones paid Laverne on the side to look out for his father, and she did Jones the favour of taking care of his dad without making it seem like she was doing it just for the money. Laverne fought him at first; she knew it was against the rules to take money on the side, but she had family back home in the Philippines who depended on her and she wasn’t making enough on the night shift to turn down free money. Had he known about it, Thomas would have been offended and would have considered the bribe a criticism of his systematic selection process—a silent message that in Jones’ eyes, he had not chosen correctly. But Jones had no problem with Martin House, and he had no evidence that the staff were doing their father any harm. He paid the money because he felt guilty. The stroke had occurred while he was away and his brother was left to care for the man who had barely cared for him. Jones had let everyone down, and so he worked overtime to make sure nothing else ever fell on his brother’s shoulders.
“Do you think I could take him for a walk?”
Laverne checked her watch. “I don’t know. It’s already after eight.” She looked at Jones and then checked her watch again as though the face had changed in the brief seconds between glances. “You need to be quick, and you need to stay on this floor. Do you remember the ruckus you caused last time, when you took him outside and tried to get back in after visiting hours were over?”
“I don’t remember any ruckus.”
Laverne put a hand on her hip and looked at him over the glasses that had slipped down the bridge of her nose. “No? Maybe, that’s because all of the ruckus happened after you went home. I was the one who had to explain to my manager why I hadn’t told anyone that your father was not in his bed after visiting hours.”
“I’m sorry, Laverne. I had no idea.”
Laverne exhaled loud enough for Jones to hear on the other side of the room. “Just stay on the floor and have him back here in half an hour.”
“I can do that.”
Laverne wasn’t satisfied. “Not thirty-one minutes, not thirty minutes and thirty seconds. Thirty minutes exactly. Got it?”
Jones held up his hand. “Got it, boss.”
Laverne smiled. Her teeth were a little crooked, but incredibly bright. Jones liked her smile and felt a bit of pride that he had caused it to appear.
“Do you need help with the transfer?”
Jones stood and retrieved the collapsible wheelchair that had been stowed behind the head of the bed. “I can manage.”
“Half an hour,” she said before she moved on to the next room.
Jones opened the chair and took a few seconds to arch his back. He had felt his muscles starting to get tight while sitting in Brew. Some part of what had happened in the basement had left its mark on him—it clung to him in the dark and refused to let go when he climbed the stairs and stepped back into the light. Jones paused at the side of the bed and wondered exactly how much of what had happened didn’t stay behind. He caught himself before his mind began to feast on the thing he was trying to ignore. He needed to keep moving.
Jones slipped his right hand under his father’s back and positioned his left arm under his thighs. Every time he moved his father, Laverne asked if he needed help. It didn’t matter that Jones was more than twice her size—she saw her two hands as an advantage over his one. While that might be true if they were eating a steak, one less hand meant nothing when it came to lifting his father. The bulk of the man who had spent a lifetime building houses had evaporated in a matter of months, leaving behind a marionette without strings behind. He eased his father’s body off the bed and transferred him to the wheelchair. The only complaint was a sudden rush of air in Jones’ ear when his father slumped into the seat.
Jones apologized as he bent to lift his father’s feet onto the two metal rests. His father’s chin had drifted forward onto his chest and Jones adjusted his body using a pillow from the bed so that it wouldn’t happen again. He looked into his father’s eyes and saw the old man blink.
“It was a bad day today, Pop.”
Jones watched his father’s eyelids slowly fall and reopen. The action wasn’t a response, Jones had no illusions that his father was trying to dialogue with ocular Morse code, but pretending he was made it easier. Sometimes, he forgot he was pretending and the monologue felt like a real conversation, even if it was replicating something that had never really happened when it was possible. If he was honest with himself, Jones would have to admit that he and his father had communicated better after one of them couldn’t. His father had always been a presence in Jones’ life, and he knew that his father loved him, but it wasn’t because it was said often, or at all. Words were mostly spent on trivial conversations about sports or the weather—never on things that mattered. Thomas was nothing like his father. His brother was an intimate conversation waiting to happen. He was passionate about almost everything. A condition that made small talk impossible. It didn’t matter that Jones was quiet, Thomas would pepper him with questions the way a fighter used jabs. Eventually, he would find an opening to get inside, and a conversation would erupt.
Jones wheeled his father out of the room and rolled through the hall on a familiar route to the large bay window. There wasn’t anyone seated near the windows so close to the end of visiting hours. Jones stopped his father next to a chair facing the windows and sat beside him. In the daytime, the window offered a view of the small patch of grass fronting the road. At night, the fluorescent bulbs turned the smudged glass into a mirror. Jones couldn’t see the grass he knew was out there; his view was either of his father or himself—he looked at his father. Keeping his voice low enough for only his father to hear, he said, “You remember the case I told you about? The woman who hired me to find her son?”
Jones caught a blink.
“I found him.”
Jones waited for another blink. Waiting for the response was habit, but this time he waited because he didn’t like what was coming next. When he saw the eyelids close, he took a breath and said, “I haven’t told her—not yet.”
Jones let it hang there until the next blink. “It was bad.”
Jones saw another blink.
“Adam had been gone so long. I knew better than to think I would find him alive, but part of me,” he shook his head, “part of me hoped I could bring him home.” Jones looked at himself in the window and shook his head. “No, that’s not true. Part of me really thought I could find him.”
In the mirror, Jones thought he saw a blink.
“I know I have to, but it’s not that simple. Things with Ruth are complicated right now. She’s not even in the country. A few months ago, she moved to Trinidad so that she could take care of her mother. The cancer in her lungs had found its way into her blood. She died last week.” Jones looked away from his reflection. “The funeral is tomorrow. Ruth should have the time to mourn her mother. She deserves that.”
Jones looked at the reflection of his father and read the slack expression as disbelief. He didn’t argue; instead, he told him the rest. “When I found him, he wasn’t alone.” Jones watched his father’s blank face waiting for him to say it all. “I made him tell me everything. It was a mistake. Finding out what had happened—what he did to Adam. After that, I couldn’t just walk away.”
Jones sighed.
“I managed to get out of that basement, but it’s only temporary.”
Jones shook his head when the next blink came.
“This can play out only one way. As soon as Ruth finds out, she’ll go straight to Adam. When she walks in to claim the body, it won’t take the police more than a few hours to get my name.”
His father blinked.
“No, Ruth won’t give me up. But she won’t need to. I’ve been searching for Adam for six years, Pop. It’s no secret. Hell, I’ve talked to the detectives who worked the case. The police will be at my door before she even leaves the station.”
His father blinked and Jones ignored him. He didn’t want to hear it, so he changed the subject. “Something else came up today. Something I need time to check on.”
Jones looked back at his father and waited for it to come. The old man kept him waiting. He cursed under his breath. “I know how it sounds, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find something. There is a kid—”
Jones saw his father blink.
“Another kid—a girl. Look, this might be nothing. It’s probably nothing. But I need to know if I can help.”
Jones didn’t want to see his father blink again. He turned his head and caught sight of himself in the window. The man in the chair looked like a bad drawing of Jones. One day had done that. One bad day.
“I have seven days until our meeting at the end of the month. That’s less than a week. Even with her mother sick, Ruth hasn’t missed a single appointment. She won’t miss this one, and neither will I. I made her a promise, and I will keep it.”
Jones didn’t look to see if his father’s eyes had an opinion; he had made his decision. “That gives her seven more days with that little bit of hope she says she doesn’t have, but I know is there.” Jones rubbed the knotted muscles at the back of his neck. “And it gives me seven days to do something right.”
He leaned into the arm of the chair and slid his phone out of his pocket. A couple of swipes brought up the picture he had taken of the door. He let his father look at it. “What do you make of this?”
Jones waited a beat and then took the phone back. He looked at the phone and read the words out loud. “He is going to kill me, and I think I want him to.”
He looked at his father. “Doesn’t read like kid stuff, does it? Reads like something serious.”
Jones saw his father’s head start to nod and he reached over to place a hand gently on his cheek. He sighed. “It’s thin. I know it’s thin, but it’s something. I need something right now. You get that, right?”
His father farted.
3
The murder made the front page of the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and the Toronto Star. A murder in Toronto wasn’t front page news; it was the remains found with the body that got all the attention. The police were not identifying the victim or giving any details about the remains, but the paper had a source that told them the second body found at the scene belonged to a child. Jones read the articles over, looking for any language that might imply something other than the obvious, but there was nothing—nothing about clues or witnesses, not even the name of the detective running the investigation. Jones should have felt relieved, but the paper did mention one thing that made relief impossible. The paper said police arrived on the scene just after six. If the reporting was accurate that meant there had been only minutes between the time Jones left and when the police arrived. A bad sign.
Jones closed the computer and made some breakfast. He ate the oatmeal and fruit at the counter and didn’t notice how any of it tasted. Jones’ mind was on the newspaper. If the paper had the time right, the first cops arrived on scene almost ten minutes after he left. That meant someone had heard the shots and called them in. He had been careful when he left; he used the back door and didn’t do anything to draw attention to himself while he walked up the street to his Jeep, but it was a safe bet that whoever had called the police had seen him—worse, they had seen the Jeep.
Jones put the bowl in the sink and turned the faucet on to fill the bowl to the rim. When he shut off the sink, he noticed the spoon still on the counter. He picked it up and looked at his reversed reflection in the convex surface of the utensil. He had missed it; another careless mistake.
Jones put two elbows on the counter and rubbed his head. He had lost control in the basement. Every ounce of training that had gone into making him a soldier, a man who could keep his cool when the world was on fire, had not come with him down those stairs. He had been careless and it had cost him. He hadn’t gotten the full accounting yet, but he was sure the bill would be in years. It wasn’t that Jones was afraid to settle up—he just wasn’t ready. He had left evidence behind; hell, he had been canvassing the neighbours the day before, but nothing the cops discovered would have led them directly to him. It was Adam who would point the cops to Jones, and Adam who would hang him. The task of determining the identity of a murder victim killed a decade ago would move at a scientist’s pace and take weeks to produce any kind of lead the cops could use, but the detectives looking at McGregor’s murder wouldn’t have to wait that long. In six days, Jones would sit down with Ruth and tell her everything. After that, the cops would have an ID on the boy in the basement and a trail that led straight to Jones.
Jones stood and stretched his back until he felt the knots tighten. He dug his thumb into his lower back and worked at the worst of the kinks as he crossed the kitchen. When he became convinced the pain was going to be hitching a ride for the day, he gave up on his back and picked up his phone. He pulled up the pictures he had taken the day before and read the message again. He had six days until he had to meet with Ruth. Six days until everything fell apart. Six days to find the girl.
4
Jones was standing in the parking lot watching his Jeep getting detailed when his phone buzzed. He pulled his phone out, glanced at the screen, and saw that it was his assistant, Melissa. Jones had a habit of throwing himself into his cases; something that pissed off anyone who was looking to get a hold of him. He eventually grew tired of the constant complaints and hired a secretarial service to take his messages and set up appointments.
“Yeah.”
“Did you forget you had an appointment this morning?” Melissa didn’t wait for Jones to come up with an answer. “I left you a message yesterday. You were supposed to call me back.”
Jones remembered the text that had come in just before everything went to shit. “I got busy.”
“Well, you have a nine a.m. appointment at your office with a potential client.”
Jones almost reflexively told her to cancel the appointment, but then he thought about what Melissa would have to say about that. She knew his schedule inside and out and she would know any excuse he gave her was bullshit—his day was wide open. Jones had planned to keep chasing the girl, but it still was too early for that, and he couldn’t face the prospect of going home to an empty house to kill time. He needed to keep moving and work was as good a destination as any.
Jones glanced at his watch and saw the minute hand flirting with the six. He judged the status of the Jeep and did a bit of mental math before he said, “I’ll be there.”
“Don’t be late for this one.”
Jones drove to his office in a vehicle that had been scrubbed clean of anything incriminating. He had no illusions about what was waiting for him at the end of the week, but he wasn’t going to make it easy. The office was off Bloor West in Koreatown. The neighbourhood had none of the cachet of Chinatown and better food. Jones owned the building, but kept only the upper floor for himself. He rented the first floor to a market that paid enough rent to cover most of his bills. The shop was busy and the sounds and smells of the produce found their way through the gaps in the aged floorboards and up to his office. Jones parked behind the market and let himself in a rear door. He went through the back room of the market past heaps of vegetables and boxes of Korean products that couldn’t be found in a grocery store outside of Seoul. Mr. Mun, the owner of Moon Market, looked up from the box of mung beans he was inspecting and nodded at Jones.
“Hey, Ralph.”
“Hello, Mr. Jones.” The unlit cigarette in Ralph’s mouth bounced when he spoke.
“Smells good.”
“They do not.” He point
ed to the cigarette. “This is for when I get tired of the smell of beans.”
“It’s your place. Why sell them if you hate the smell?”
“They taste better than they smell.” He slapped his belly. “The woman teaching yoga up the street recommends them to her clients. I can’t keep them in stock.”
“So I can expect more of this smell?”
Ralph nodded his shaven head and extracted a black bean. “You can also expect more rent money.”
“I have someone coming by the office.”
Ralph found another black bean. “She is already here.”
“How do you know she’s my client?”
The grocer laughed. “You can tell.”
Jones clapped Ralph on the back and walked out through the market to the street. On his way past the register, he nodded to Ralph’s daughter Linda. As usual, she was listening to K-pop music on one earbud. When she noticed Jones, she smiled wide. “This one didn’t look happy.”
Jones stopped next to the register. “You let her up?”
Linda nodded and held out her hand. Jones gave her a five for working the door.
“I should have done you a favour and kept the door locked.”
Jones laughed. “She really that bad?”
“You could tell by the look on her face and the way she crossed her arms when she found the door locked—she thinks she’s too good for a place like this.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t like the smell of mung beans.”
Linda rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, I hate those things. My dad keeps trying to get me to eat them. He says they’re full of fibre.” She nodded to a woman with a basket full of produce and said something friendly in Korean. The customer started putting the items next to the register. “I’d rather be constipated.”
Jones laughed and thanked her on his way out. The door fronted the sidewalk and opened to a stairwell. On the landing at the top of the stairs was Jones’ nine o’clock appointment.
