by Jonas Saul
“Tim Sim. It’s been too long.”
Tim Sim?
He hadn’t been called that in a long time. The play on his name was something common in high school and later on, police college. The people he knew since making detective never called him that.
“Who is this?” he asked again.
“We’ve met once before.”
“And …”
“Look, I’ll get to the point. You’ve got a little mess that needs cleaning up.”
“Listen asshole, I’m going to hang up now. Not interested in what you’re selling.”
“A lot of people will die if you hang up.”
The silence that followed allowed Tim to hear the caller’s breathing. A distant memory was surfacing. The voice was recognizable, but he couldn’t place it.
“You’ve got my attention.”
“Good.”
Papers shuffled on the other end of the line.
“Why is Sarah Roberts in Toronto?”
“No idea.”
“Is she of interest to you?”
“What’s your stake in this?” Tim asked.
The caller’s name was close. An old school friend, a neighbor, an associate. He had to keep him talking.
“I’ll ask the questions. That agreeable?”
“This kind of mysterious phone call only happens in the movies. Unless you’ve recently escaped a rubber room. Are you for real?”
“That was your last question. Understood?”
When he said understood in a deeper, more pronounced voice, the caller’s name popped into Tim’s head.
Toronto City Councilor Marshall Machiavelli.
He had worked close with Marshall during the last Toronto mayoral elections. Security detail had been compromised and detectives without a large case load were assigned to locate the insiders. Some believed there was an old boys’ club that Marshall spearheaded. The media mentioned multiple councilors in the past decade as members of this club. Harold Hoffenburg, Fletcher Aldrich, Omar Howe who represented Hamilton and the Turner brothers, Ruben and Shawn. Ever since Toronto amalgamated and became the GTA, the Greater Toronto Area, the rumors of the old boys’ club thrived.
So why is Marshall calling me?
“What have you learned from Sarah’s boyfriend, Aaron?” Marshall asked.
“Nothing I’m willing to discuss on this call.”
“Are you saying you still have no clue what Sarah is up to?”
“No comment.”
“You’re lying. You know something.”
“How’s that?” Tim asked. Then in a snarky, sarcastic voice, he said, “Or am I not allowed to ask you anything?”
“We all know who shot Vanessa.”
At the sound of his daughter’s name, Tim tightened his grip on the phone until the plastic whined under the strain.
“C’mon Tim Sim, I’ve seen the footage. Sarah Roberts brought a parachute, disguised as a backpack, to the roof of the CN Tower, shot your daughter and then jumped and disappeared. Suddenly, after the funeral of your daughter, you’re having a drink with her in the pub where you practically gave her your weapon. If you’re not involved, when the disciplinary actions come down the pipe, you’re going to have a hard time explaining that. Especially explaining your involvement with The Club.” He cleared his throat and coughed into the phone.
The Club?
There was that name again. A horrible place that every cop in the city left alone. They paid their taxes and no one ever complained about The Club. Ever. Tim knew of several members and a few who visited The Club, but it was always hush hush.
“Rumor has it Vanessa recently stayed at The Club’s warehouse, courtesy of The Club’s hospitality. But she left after a few nights. Somehow she escaped their welcoming arms. But we now know how she got out and it is being dealt with.”
Why is he telling me all this?
A thought struck Tim so hard he winced. To know anything about The Club was to be on the inside. Since Tim was on the outside, would he disappear like Officer Mark Hemmings did a week after that Christmas party? Was Marshall telling him this information because in the end it really didn’t matter what Tim knew as his days were numbered like Vanessa’s had been?
Vile anger, a seething fury, rose in a flash and then abated just as quickly. He clenched and unclenched the fist of his free hand. He couldn’t deal with this call, the loss of his daughter, and veiled threats from an asshole councilman, with anger. He would beat them by staying calm.
“If The Club was responsible for Vanessa wanting to kill herself—” His throat clenched with emotion. He swallowed and tried again. “If they hurt her, I will kill—”
“Easy, easy, Tim Sim. Your anger is misdirected.” Someone knocked on his office door. “I think you need to direct your anger where it matters.” They knocked again. Then his doorknob twisted. “It’s Sarah Roberts who hurt Vanessa, not The Club. We were kind to her. She enjoyed herself in our presence.”
The door opened and Detective Marina Diner stepped in. She mouthed the words, You okay?
“Find Sarah,” Marshall said. “End this stupidity. Powerful people need this to be quelled. Consider your career. If you don’t end this, walk out of your office now and leave a note behind describing where you want your ashes to be strewn because it all ends in death, Detective Simmons, it all ends in death.”
The line went dead. Tim slammed the phone down. Marina flinched.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Telemarketer. What’s up?”
“You’re pale. Your eyes are red and you look like you just broke out in a sweat. Are you okay?”
“Pain in my hand. No sleep. We haven’t found Sarah and I have to go home now. Nothing is working out, is it, Diner?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Why are you here?”
“Came to tell you that we had to let Aaron Stevens go but we kept the Charger.”
“Fine. Fuck him. We’ll find Sarah without his help.”
Tim got up and stormed past Marina.
“I’m sure we will,” she said behind him.
He passed Detective Mason standing outside his office door.
“What are you looking at?” Tim asked.
“Death warmed over. A zombie. You’re looking bad, Detective Simmons. Maybe bereavement leave is in order.”
Tim turned to face Mason. He never really liked Mason or his straight-laced partner, Diner. And now they hung over this case and his office like he was a suspect.
“What gives you the fucking right to—”
“Detective Simmons!” Diner shouted as she exited his office. “Move along. Go home. Sleep. Don’t come back until you’re thinking straight.”
Doors opened along the corridor. Their colleagues stepped out to watch the fracas.
Tim wouldn’t give them the pleasure or the satisfaction of decking Mason. They weren’t worth it.
He spun around and strode for the exit. He would be back later in the day and when he returned, he would investigate The Club. Maybe he’d pay them a visit. Why had his daughter been there? They had to have picked her up for some reason because she would have never gone there voluntarily. Whatever the reason was, what Sarah said made more sense now. When she told him Vanessa feared cremation, he had thought of the consortium, The Club. That was how they dealt with the unfortunates that died while under their care. But there was no way Vanessa would know that.
But if she had been there …
It all ends in death and she didn’t want to be cremated.
He was sure now that it would end in death if they had taken Vanessa there. He suspected what really happened inside the walls of The Club’s warehouse. He knew what they did to young, clean, innocent girls and boys.
It looked more and more like this would all end in death.
The Club’s or his.
Chapter 13
Sarah’s bullet, guided by Vivian, made a clean entry into Belinda’s right eye.
It left a gaping black hole beside her nose and a large red hole at the back of her head. The arm that had guided the blade across the young girl’s throat had faltered, stopped and slipped to Belinda’s lap.
The girl in Belinda’s clutches had screamed at the sound of the gun, but the gun’s report had drowned most of it out. The girl had also jumped in panic, jerking Belinda’s arm away from her enough that as the blade began to cross her flesh, it only nicked a small piece of skin below her jaw line. Other than the bruises on her face, being startled and going out of her mind at the sights in the macabre basement, the girl was physically fine.
“Get up,” Sarah said, amazed that she could find her voice.
Vivian’s numbing of her gun hand wore off as fast as it came on.
The girl was already crawling away from Belinda’s body. At the stairs, she clambered to her feet and rushed up the steps, only stumbling once.
Without looking back into the corner, Sarah checked Belinda’s pulse to make sure she was gone.
“Is she dead?” the girl on the bed asked, her voice weak.
“Looks that way.” Sarah scanned the woman’s body. Their eyes met. Insanity lingered behind the soft brown eyes of a once beautiful woman. What the woman must’ve endured down here had changed her forever. This was the kind of thing a team of therapists could listen to in group therapy and then be in need of therapy themselves for having heard it.
“What happened here?” Sarah asked with trepidation, not sure she wanted to hear the truth.
The girl rolled back in the bed until she was staring up at the basement ceiling. She panted, breathing in and out in gasps now. Between breaths, she tried to speak.
“They kidnapped … us.”
Sarah looked around at the filth in an attempt to determine where the smell was coming from.
“They tortured us, raped us and dismembered us.”
Dismembered?
Sarah’s eyes shot to the woman’s yellowed hands and feet. Moments before she thought it was a body bruise or a malfunctioning liver. But now, this close, she saw what was strapped to the woman’s limbs.
“They cut those girls up,” she jerked her head toward the corner where the two bodies lie tied to the wall. The two that Sarah hadn’t looked back at yet. “And placed their hands and feet on my stumps after removing mine.”
Sarah had heard enough. She stumbled away, bumped Belinda’s body and fell, hitting the basement’s cement floor with a thump as vomit shot from her whiskey-addled stomach.
Oh Vivian …
“I’m sorry,” the girl continued. “Please. Help me. Get me out of here.”
The woman who had run upstairs began screaming. She shouted something incoherent as Sarah vomited again.
Her anger rose with the bile. In a distant part of her consciousness she understood her path, her destiny. She always had, but since the days of stopping Armond Stuart in Europe and Elmore Ackerman in Toronto, she had slipped a little. She had grown softer, cooler. Maybe even a little arrogant. Her youthful ways back when she was a newbie at this had kept her alive. She had a mouth on her in those days and an attitude that made her feel invincible. But recently she had found love with Aaron. As beautiful as love was, it had softened her. She could still love, but to do what she did with Vivian, she needed to pull from the place that she used to pull from. She needed to get angrier and deal with people like Joel and Belinda without remorse or worry of consequences. There was no court of law that could ever pass sentencing that made up for what had happened here in this basement.
If that meant Sarah had to go underground, then so be it. Vivian would teach her, keep her safely hidden. But in the end, her mission, her life’s mission, was to locate people who broke the law and not only got away with it, but never really paid for what they did.
These abused women would pay for the rest of their lives, if they lived long enough to allow that suffering.
Sarah wept on the cold floor of the basement as she wiped bile from the edge of her mouth. Vivian snuck in her conscious and whispered that she was sorry, but there was no other way. Sarah needed to get back to Toronto to deliver a message. The police were on their way. The girl upstairs had called them.
Then, in a brief flash, Vivian explained what had happened here.
Sarah’s stomach clenched again, this time more violently. It made her feel weak, but most of all, it made her feel human. And to be human is to be humane. To be humane meant people like Belinda and Joel didn’t deserve life sentences in cushy prisons, meals at set hours and workout routines. No, to be humane was to rip their heads off for what they had done to these women.
Sarah whispered a small prayer for the girls in the corner as she understood why they looked so horrid now. Their skin had been removed in spots and interchanged with the other’s body in a grotesquery of puppetry. Several parts of their bodies were hacked out or off and were used in sexual ways that Sarah didn’t even know were possible.
Dolls, Belinda had called them.
The girl on the other bed was dead. She had died that morning, hence the search for another hitchhiker today to replace their dead toy. The horrid stitch job had been Joel’s insane search for a demon he claimed had hidden in her flesh. The same demon that forced him to rape her countless times in unimaginable ways.
All this and more came to Sarah through Vivian’s unique presence. Sarah didn’t want to know anything else, couldn’t stand the thought of it. Her sanity tilted momentarily, leaving Sarah wondering if she would slip into blissful madness. That might be a better alternative than being aware, awake.
She struggled to her feet, weakened by the expelling of her stomach and her physical setbacks prior to arriving at the house. Once standing, she held the railing by the stairs and waited until her head cleared.
“The police,” she licked her lips and swallowed, her throat dry. “The police are coming. You can go home soon.” She started up the stairs, then stopped. A glance at Belinda’s body issued a revolting disgust inside her that she had heretofore never felt. She raised the weapon and fired twice into Belinda’s face and throat. Then she looked at the woman on the bed.
“I’m sorry.” She caught a tear with the back of her wrist as it descended her cheek. “I’m so, so sorry.”
At the top of the stairs, she entered the hall and turned for the back of the yard. The hitchhiker Belinda and Joel had snatched earlier sat curled up on the floor against the cupboard, sobbing.
“I called …” She hiccuped. “I called the police.”
“Good,” Sarah said.
The smell in the kitchen was just as bad as before but this time, thanks to Vivian, Sarah knew the source. Body parts, feces and decaying flesh was wrapped in a bag for later disposal. The bag was leaking under the kitchen sink.
“Maybe you should wait outside,” Sarah suggested. “Smells better out there.”
“I’m not going near him.” She pointed at Joel’s body in the chair out by the back porch.
“He’s dead. He can’t hurt you. Come on.”
Sarah offered a hand and the girl took it. Outside, she helped the girl onto the grass where she lay out and stared up at the vast blue sky. Then Sarah moved to stand in front of Joel. As she did with Belinda, Sarah raised Simmons’ weapon and emptied it into Joel’s dead body.
“There, he can’t hurt you ever again. He’s not just dead, he’s completely dead.”
She placed the gun down in front of Joel. After a quick search of his pockets, she located the gate fob and deactivated the electrical fence and opened the iron gate wide.
Sirens wailed in the distance, leaving little time. She exited the property without looking back, only pausing to grab a tin can that once held corn out of their recycle bin and continued walking.
She left the nightmare behind her. The heat didn’t bother her. The lack of water made her stronger. She walked with purpose, the tin can in her hand, and made her way back to the highway.
According to Vivian there was a lot to
do yet. This was only the beginning, and even though Sarah wasn’t too keen on dealing with anything remotely like what she had just witnessed, she was determined to end this her way, the only way she knew how. The old Sarah way.
Wanting to scream, to push the memories back, to allow the anger a place to flow, Sarah walked faster, her energy brimming over.
Moments later she was running, her teeth clenched as she cried for the lost ones.
