The Calling

by Inger Ash Wolfe

'You need a third body to prove that.'

  'I know.'

  'We had one murder the whole time I was mayor. A man killed his wife.'

  'Gerald Clipshaw.'

  'You remember.' Her mother was smiling as if Hazel had recalled her birthday. 'He stabbed her in the heart and then showed up at the station with the knife. Crying. The whole thing took an hour to solve.'

  'Ah, things were so much simpler in the olden days.' She took another spoonful of the soggy cereal. Already she was imagining what she would order at Ladyman's. She dreaded showing up to work this morning. Word of the Ulmer murder had made it to Port Dundas, and she was certain she'd be hearing from Gord Sunderland today. She'd had a phone call the night before from a TV station in Mayfair – if the news had already made it halfway to Toronto, she had to wonder if it wouldn't make it the rest of the way soon, and that was something to be delayed as long as possible. She'd already had the instinct that the outcome in this case depended upon the police protecting the killer's privacy and therefore upholding his sense of invincibility. She was certain that he would vanish at the first sign of danger. His touchstones were patience and preparation. Just the same, another body would mean bedlam. She feared its inevitability. 'I better go,' she said. 'Try not to answer the phone today.'

  'You want me to lock the doors and stay in bed with the covers up to my chin?'

  'No. Just don't talk to anyone you don't know.'

  'I'm playing rummy with Clara and Margaret this morning. We'll cower together under the table if you like.'

  Hazel sat on the deacon's bench in the front hall and leaned over to put on her boots. She felt the familiar twinge in her lower back, the pain radiating in a sharp electrical shock around the front of her hip. Her mother could probably still pole-vault, if she wanted to, and here I am, thought Hazel, falling apart at sixty-one.

  Her mother came down the hallway with something wrapped in wax paper. 'What's this,' said Hazel, taking it from her.

  'Something to cheer you up, love.' Hazel held the little package up. There was a piece of toast inside. She could smell butter.

  'You're a nice old lady,' she said. She kissed her mother on the forehead – that smell of rosewater – and went out to the car.

  Monday was the news conference. The editorial staff of the Westmuir Record would have been hard at work all weekend resetting today's edition of the paper, and she had no doubt that Sunderland was not going to be pleased he'd been shut out of a personal audience with her. Hazel had to smile inwardly at her mild deception. Misdirection is how she liked to put it. But who was Gord Sunderland to think he was entitled to anything? She was interested in knowing what the paper was going to say about Delia Chandler. She pulled over by the Stop 'N' Go and bought a copy of it. The front page and the two inside local news pages had been reset to deal with Delia's murder. Spelling bees and Christmas wreaths were going to have to wait for a quiet newsday now, she thought. A picture of Delia, taken sometime in the last three or four years, was on the front page under the headline PORT DUNDAS LOCAL MURDERED IN HER OWN HOME. The front page advertised full coverage of the murder within, plus an editorial. There were no specifics about Delia's death, which meant the station house was still sealed tight, but the witness who had seen a 'strange car' on Taylor Street was now claiming it was a black, late-model Ford sedan. Interesting what a microphone can do for a faulty memory, Hazel thought. On the inside pages there was a picture of Delia from the 1960s. She'd been quite beautiful then, her lips painted darkly. Old photographs could make you feel bad for anyone: those innocent faces with no knowledge of the future. There was Delia, not knowing that forty-odd years from that moment, she'd be lying dead on her sofa, her head almost completely sawn off. Best not to know, Hazel said to herself, and she shuddered, realizing that the mystery of her own future contained first her mother's death, and then her own.

  At the station house, she slipped in through the back door where she could avoid the small gathering of local press she expected had already begun to assemble out on the front steps. She gestured to Melanie to follow her into her office. She shut the door once her assistant entered and stood in the middle of the room with her. 'I have a cellphone now,' she said.

  'I know,' said Cartwright. 'That's really excellent.'

  'You and Ray Greene will have the number. No one else, though. No reporters, no mothers, no one. Is that clear?'

  There was a brief silence. 'Is there anything else?' asked Cartwright.

  Hazel brought the phone out of her vest pocket. 'I'd like you to show me how to place a call on this thing.' Cartwright smiled faintly. 'I'd wipe that look off your face, missy.'

  'You have to turn it on.'

  'Take me through it.' Melanie Cartwright took the phone from her and pushed the power button.

  Everyone at the station house had the newspaper. Hazel walked into the pen and one of the duty officers, PC Ashton, held up his copy and said, 'Apparently, we're still at square one.'

  Hazel took the paper away from him and held it at her side. 'All of you may be as shocked as the rest of the readers of the Westmuir Record that a murder has happened in our sleepy little town. But unlike those people, we don't get our news from the Westmuir Record, no matter how tempting it may be. Now, how many of you in this room spoke to reporters at this newspaper?' No one raised their hand, but all looked around; they took her question to indicate that someone had broken rank. But instead, Hazel smiled at them. 'Right. None of you did. And none of you will. And that's why I want to see every copy of the Westmuir Record in this room in the recycling bin immediately. It has nothing to say to us, and I don't want you getting your facts mixed up with other people's speculation.'

  'Um, Inspector,' said Ashton, whose paper she'd taken. 'I was actually looking for a used fridge. Mine's on the fritz.'

  She handed Ashton his paper back. 'Adrian can buy a new fridge, but the rest of you ...' The room seemed to rise as one. 'Greene, Wingate: I'd like to see you in the conference room when I'm done with the hordes. Howard Spere will be here any minute.' Both detectives nodded at her. 'I'll be back in ten.'

  She recognized Paul Garland from the weekly Dublin Ledger, Patricia Warren from the Beaton Advertiser (monthly), and two younger reporters from parts unknown. She suspected they might be from the cable access station in Mayfair. But there was no Gord Sunderland. 'We're going to wait a minute,' she said, and Garland put his hand up.

  'Any chance we can go inside? It's the middle of November out here.'

  'It's the middle of November inside too.'

  'But it's warmer inside.'

  'This won't take long,' she said, 'and my people are pretty busy with this investigation, as you can imagine.'

  'Do you have any leads on the Chandler murder?' asked one of the two kids.

  'Who are you? I've never seen you before.'

  'Alex Finch and Janet Turner' – Janet waved sheepishly – 'CKBF Mayfair. I hear that there was a strange black car spotted on Taylor the day of the killing.'

  'First off,' said Detective Inspector Micallef, 'I'm here to make a statement, not to answer questions. Secondly, if you're getting your facts from the paper of record, you should know that nothing you've read in today's issue of the Westmuir Record is based on statements made by the Port Dundas PD.'

  'So there's no car?'

  'Here's the statement.' She took a single sheet of paper out of a folder and held it out in front of her. The wind caught the corner and folded the paper over on itself. '''On Saturday 13 November, the body of Delia Chandler, age eighty-one, was discovered in her home. At this time, the Port Dundas police, in co-operation with personnel from Mayfair, and under the direction of Central Region of the OPS, have embarked on a full-scale investigation. In the interest of the investigation, we are unable to enlarge on the particulars of the case; however, we will update the public with pertinent details when they become available and thank you all in advance for your understanding." Our community liaison officer, PC Eileen Bail, will be out
shortly with copies of this statement should you like to have one.' She looked around the small gathering. Their eyes seemed to have glazed over. Patricia Warren looked down at her notes.

  'Um, Inspector?'

  'Yes?'

  'Can you confirm that Delia Chandler was murdered?'

  'Can I confirm that?'

  'Yes, can you confirm that?'

  'Don't you read the Westmuir Record?'

  'I do, but you said—'

  'Yes,' said Hazel Micallef. 'She was murdered.' She turned, ignoring the three other hands in the air and went through the door. PC Bail was waiting with a thin sheaf of photocopies in her hand. 'They're all ready for you, Eileen. Positively rabid with anticipation.'

  'Thanks, Chief.'

  'Anytime.'

  'Um, Skip?' Hazel stopped and faced her. 'They're just doing their jobs, you know.'

  'They're cannibals in slacks, Eileen. Ask my mother about it sometime.' PC Bail looked down at the floor. 'Anything else?'

  'Not right now.'

  Hazel turned a sheet over the top of the easel. Ray Greene, James Wingate and Howard Spere were sitting with their coffees at the table in front of her. 'We're going to go over what we know and then figure out what our best move is. Ray, you start.'

  Greene opened his notebook and flipped back a couple of pages. 'We have two bodies. One here in Port Dundas, the other in Chamberlain, three hundred and fifteen kilometres away. The first, Delia Chandler, was murdered sometime after four o'clock on Friday 12 November. White female aged eightyone. She was heavily sedated, murdered, and then partially drained of blood. After she was dead, the killer cut her throat. According to Dr Deacon's report, her mouth was interfered with post mortem. She also had a broken finger.'

  'DC Wingate has a theory about that,' said Hazel, who had been writing the details down hurriedly on the easel, 'which, for the time being, he is going to keep to himself.' Wingate smiled in a pained fashion. 'Forensics, Howard?'

  'We found fingerprints on the door that belong to the victim, as well as to Bob Chandler. We have to presume that the killer wore gloves, because there are no fingerprints inside the house that don't match the victim or her son. There was a scuff in the carpet inside the door with a partial impression of a shoeprint in it, and it suggests the killer is a size eleven, but it's inconclusive. No forced entry, as has been previously established. No struggle is evident—'

  'Although let's keep in mind that the place was spotless,' said Hazel. 'Either Delia cleaned it top to bottom before her visitor arrived, or the killer himself cleaned up. Jack Deacon says he would have had to be in the house a minimum of three hours after her death. If there was a struggle, there would have been plenty of time to erase all evidence of it.'

  'Okay,' said Detective Spere, 'so maybe there was a struggle, but I think Jack would have been able to back it up with defensive wounds on the victim's body, so for now, we're going to go with no struggle, and I think we'll find the Ulmer murder backs that up.'

  'No, it doesn't,' said Greene.

  'Can we finish with Mrs Chandler before we move on?' said Hazel, and Greene gestured to her to carry on.

  'Okay,' said Hazel, taking out Jack Deacon's report. 'The time frame of the murder, according to Jack, is that a heavily sedating agent is introduced to the victim at around four o'clock in the afternoon, and takes effect shortly afterward. Between four and five, the killer breaks the victim's finger and then introduces a trace amount of amatoxin, this being the agent that causes death. Then he puts a widebore needle into the victim's femoral artery and sucks most of the blood out of her body, either by using a large syringe or pump of some kind.'

  'They have pumps for that?' said Greene.

  Hazel ignored him. 'Deacon puts death at five in the afternoon, according to the potassium levels in the victim's vitreous humour. He had three hours after that to cut her head nearly off, clean – if he cleaned – and to do what he did to her mouth.'

  'What do you think that means?' asked Greene.

  'It could mean that it doesn't matter to the killer whether we see that sign or not,' said Spere.

  'Great,' said Greene, and he made a gesture as if to throw his notebook over his shoulder.

  'All right, that's Delia, unless anyone has anything else to add.' Hazel drew a circle around the facts as she'd written them down in short form on the easel. No one spoke as she wrote 'Michael Ulmer' on the other half of the sheet. 'Ray?'

  'Okay, so Ulmer. Less than forty-eight hours later, most likely around noon on Sunday 14 November. A call was placed to the Chamberlain Community Policing office around eleven. The caller identified himself as a homecare nurse. We're going to have to go with Chamberlain's superior policing skills on that one and take it at face value unless anyone wants to propose a reason the killer called in his own crime.'

  'Forty-five minutes before the time of death?' said Spere. 'Sounds a little daring.'

  'That's what I think,' said Greene. 'So: white male, twenty-nine, multiple sclerosis sufferer. Was apparently killed by blunt-force trauma to the head, emphasis on force. Forensics found teeth embedded in the victim's pillow. Both hands were severely traumatized in a similar fashion, but there was no evidence of venipuncture, and it would seem, from what we saw at the crime scene, that there was no shortage of blood supply in the victim's body. East Central OPS is sharing jurisdiction with us on this one, and we sent Ulmer to Mayfair to keep Jack Deacon in the loop. We're waiting for pathology to be faxed up to see if there was anything in his stomach similar to what was in Mrs Chandler's. The victim here was almost certainly carried upstairs to a master bedroom that, apart from the murder, appeared to be unused.'

  'Forensics?'

  'Same as the Chandler murder,' said Spere, 'but without the carpet scuff. One item of interest is that despite the amount of blood, it's limited to the murder site. The killer would have had to clean himself up, but there's no blood on the carpet in the master bedroom, or in the closest bathroom. He's very meticulous. I think he's only appearing to make a mess.'

  'Deacon isn't done with the body, but we know what we know about its physical condition. Let's sum up.' Hazel circled Ulmer's column and now she drew a line under it all. 'Ident practically bagged both houses, but nothing points anywhere conclusive so far, correct, Howard?'

  'My guys brought Mrs Chandler's computer in this morning,' said Spere. 'There's nothing. Some emails to and from an old girl in Florida – weather and gardens, that sort of thing. A couple of web receipts from the drugstore – she knew how to renew her prescriptions online. Very little else. There was virtually nothing of interest in her web history.'

  'What would that be, Howard? A web history.'

  'Just a way to go back over the places you've visited on the Internet over a period of time. What we found out was that she learned how to make parmesan rice last Monday on a recipe site, on Tuesday she Googled "Merle Haggard", and As the World Turns, and two Wednesdays before her death, she bought a duvet cover on Bidnow.com.'

  Wingate seemed surprised. 'So was this an assisted suicide or not?'

  Spere cast him a look. 'You think buying a duvet cover is evidence one way or the other?'

  'I think so,' said the young detective. 'If she knew this person was coming to visit her with the purpose of helping her to end her life, then why would she be buying anything online?'

  'Good point,' said Hazel. 'She lets this man in, but she has no idea what's going to happen to her?'

  'Or she's actually not expecting him,' said Spere.

  'Let's reiterate: no signs of a struggle,' said Greene.

  'Right. But he's sedated her with belladonna.'

  'He broke her finger,' said Wingate. They all looked at him, and then at Hazel.

  'Go on, James,' she said.

  'Okay,' he said nervously. He directed his comments at the others. 'He broke Delia Chandler's finger to ensure she was anaesthetized. It was snapped cleanly in two, and it wasn't an accident. Deacon says in his report that it had definite
ly happened while she was still alive because there was swelling around the break, and that means that her heart was still beating. So the killer used it to test if she was ready. There was an agreement between them, and this was part of it. He's invited, and the victims know what will happen to them when he arrives.'

  'Then what about Ulmer?' said Spere. 'What was it with breaking every bone in that man's hand? He just wanted to be ultra-certain?'

  'I don't know,' said Wingate.

  Ray Greene was drawing an invisible circle on the tabletop with his forefinger. 'I think maybe we're being a little fast out of the blocks with all this. On the surface, nothing really connects these two killings except for the fact that they've happened within a three-hour drive of each other. And right now, all we have are surfaces to work with.'

  'But Ulmer wasn't killed three hours after Delia,' said Wingate. 'It was almost two days later.'

  'So what?' said Greene. 'Listen, kid, I appreciate that you'd like to make a good first impression, but you've been here all of, what, twenty-one hours, and frankly, I'm not sure I want to factor in all your cubscout wild guesses about this guy's agreements with the people he's slicing and bludgeoning to death.' Hazel was staring at him. 'Okay?' he said to her.

  'Detective Constable Wingate, what was the point you were going to make about the delay between the killings?'

  Wingate turned to her. 'He's not just showing up out of the blue, Inspector. He's keeping appointments.'

  There was a knock at the door and Cartwright stuck her head in. 'I have Jack Deacon on the phone. He wants to talk to you before he faxes his report. That okay?'

  'Conference him in,' said Hazel. She switched on the receiver on the tabletop. It looked like a black starfish with three arms. Presently, they heard Deacon's voice.

  'Let me guess – you guys are desperately trying to find the connection between Ulmer and Chandler.'

  Greene leaned toward the device. 'You should be a detective, Jack.'

  'Well, you can relax. Kind of. It is the same guy. Ulmer's stomach was full of belladonna. I doubt he felt a thing.'

  'I guess that's good,' said Hazel. 'So what killed him? Amatoxin?'