Cut to the Bone

by Joan Boswell

  Oh God, she hoped Agnes wasn’t dead. She wished she’d come earlier. If only she’d brought her cell phone with her. Speed could be important. Crouched down, she reached through the opening and shoved Agnes far enough away to enable her to slip through the partially open door.

  Agnes sprawled on the floor clutching the phone receiver.

  Hollis knelt beside her, felt for a pulse, found a faint one, removed the receiver from Agnes’s limp hand, and phoned for help. Then, sure that Agnes was breathing, she hurried to the living room, retrieved the cozy knitted afghan from the back of the sofa and brought it back to cover her friend. Feeling helpless and wishing she could do something more, she held Agnes’s hand and wondered if the woman had had a heart attack or a stroke, the common killers of elderly women.

  Again the street filled with emergency vehicles, but this time they didn’t tarry. The paramedics, refusing to answer Hollis’s questions, loaded Agnes on a stretcher and rushed her off to the hospital. As Hollis watched the ambulance, siren braying, pull away from the building, she prayed that that Agnes arrived in time to be helped.

  What a night! Before she crawled into bed beside Willem, who snored gently, she set the alarm. Enveloped in the warm sheets and longing to sink into oblivion, her tired mind refused to stop, and the events of the evening played over and over while she tossed and turned.

  Next morning Hollis rolled over, clicked the alarm off, and saw that Willem was gone. No doubt he’d slipped out early to go home and prepare for his class. It had been good of him to stay. She stretched and both dogs leaped to their feet, rushed to her side, and began to lick whatever part of her they could find.

  She pushed them away and jumped out of bed. Her smart dogs might want to greet her, but more likely they knew they’d found a surefire way to get her moving. Out of bed, she planned her day. Once the girls left, she must contact Norman, phone Brownelly, and then visit the hospital to check on Agnes and Ginny’s boyfriend. In the kitchen she opted for the convenience of smoothies and threw yogurt, orange juice, and bananas into the blender. Two tall glasses and toast awaited the girls when they emerged. Dark circles under their eyes provided mute testimony that they’d spent half the night in the yard watching high drama.

  “Tuna or salmon? Lunch at school again today.”

  “Salmon,” they said in unison. Jay did not accuse Hollis of neglect but accepted that this was how it was going to be.

  Back from the invigorating walk to school, Hollis checked for messages on the land line. She’d been obsessively pulling her BlackBerry out of her pocket since early morning. No one had contacted her on either one.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Rhona needed double-strength high test caffeine to jump-start her the next morning. Sleep deprivation, an occupational hazard, required extreme measures. She’d applied concealer under her eyes to partially hide the dark circles and makeup to cover her pallor but could do nothing to clear her bloodshot eyes or remedy her bone weariness. When she reached the office at eight Ian sat at his desk. Rhona had read that metrosexuals used makeup to enhance their appearance, but the grey cast to Ian’s fair skin and the circles under his eyes had received no cosmetic help.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Cartwright abandoned his car in the commuter lot at Finch and Yonge. I had it towed and I’ve given the forensic team a heads up to make it a priority. ”

  “Put out a press release on Cartwright. Pull up his mug shot from the files. Run it and ask anyone knowing his whereabouts to contact the police.”

  “And the usual warning that he may be armed and dangerous?” Ian asked.

  “Of course. We may get lucky but I imagine he’s gone to ground. The Black Hawks must have a hundred ways to escape detection.”

  Rhona filled her mug at the coffee machine. After a long swig she plunked into a chair. “At least we have the victim’s ID.”

  “We ran her prints and her name once we knew it. Nothing there.”

  “Hollis Grant refuses to tell us how she contacted her tenant Mary Montour, but if Veronica Horn lived with her and Mary ran away because she was afraid, we definitely have to interview her. I’ll insist on a contact number. I also have to talk to Agnes Johnson.”

  “She’s the one who gave us a detailed description of Sabrina Trepanier and a man coming in on Monday evening.”

  “Right, and, according to Hollis, she remembered something else she thinks we should know.” She finished her coffee. “What else?”

  “Veronica’s autopsy results. More follow-ups on the johns. I’m talking to the guns and gangs crew about Cartwright’s position with the bikers.”

  Rhona checked her watch. “Hollis should have delivered those kids to school by the time I get there. I’m off.”

  Buzzed in by Hollis, who was waiting in her office, Rhona didn’t sit down. She stood in the doorway.

  “I must contact Mary Montour immediately. Give me a number to reach her.”

  Hollis, about to sit down, stopped. “I can’t because I don’t have it. A friend talked to her.”

  “Give me his or her number. We have to get moving.”

  Hollis regarded Rhona as if she was an annoying fly. “I’m sorry. I will contact him right now while you wait, but I’m not giving you his number.”

  Rhona stepped into the office. “I don’t understand the secrecy.”

  “To be frank, neither do I, but he insisted on it and I respect his right to do that.” Hollis yanked her cell phone from her hoodie’s pocket, turned away from Rhona, and punched in the message.

  I have a police officer here who needs to know Mary’s phone number. It’s urgent. Please contact her and get back to me quickly.

  She sat back and waited.

  Rhona didn’t smile or thank Hollis. “I’ll take a minute and talk to Agnes Johnson. What apartment is she in?”

  Hollis shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “When she didn’t come down to see what was happening, I knew something was wrong, and I found her on the floor of her apartment.”

  “Dead?”

  “No. I think she had a stroke or maybe it was a heart attack. She was unconscious. I called this morning. She’s alive. I hope she makes it. I plan to visit later.”

  Rhona perched on the visitor’s hard chair. “Tell me what she told you.”

  “Early in the morning she noticed a man in lurking in the shadows with a bundle on the ground in front of him. He stayed outside until the man delivering the morning paper left. Then he gathered up the bundle, pushed it under his jacket, and hustled into the building. When he came into the light, she saw that he wore dark clothes and had pulled a dark beret down over his hair”

  “Why didn’t she tell us this right away?”

  “She forgot. She woke up because she had a migraine, took medication, and sat in the window while she waited for it to work.”

  “Did she recognize the man?”

  “Not then, but that’s why it all came back to her. Yesterday she thought a man in the elevator wearing a black cap was him.”

  “Too bad she didn’t remember sooner, but later is better than never. Run yesterday’s security footage for me.”

  Hollis did as she was told. At three fifteen, Agnes entered the elevator from the fourth floor, and on the third a man wearing a black hat got on. They watched as Agnes spoke and then waggled a finger at the man before both exited.

  “Who is it?” Rhona demanded.

  “My god,” Hollis said as she digested what she’d seen.

  “Run today’s tape from early this morning. I want to know if he’s gone out,” Rhona ordered.

  Tim O’Toole was in his apartment.

  “Did he do it?” Hollis asked.

  “Too soon to know for sure, but his actions put him in the frame,” Rhona said before she sent Hollis out of the office.

  “Ian, we have a suspect who remains in his apartment. Get a search warrant and brief Frank. I’ll instruct them to approach quietly
— no sirens. I’ll make sure he stays where he is.”

  Rhona hung up and allowed herself a moment of relaxation before the chaos to come.

  Hollis knocked on the door frame.

  Rhona kept one eye on the camera. She didn’t want the perp to escape.

  “My friend called. Mary Montour left the reserve and he doesn’t have her cell phone number.”

  “Let’s hope she’s on her way back,” Rhona said and directed her attention back to the screen.

  Hollis chose not to confide Norman’s refusal to answer her question about Brownelly. Whatever his connection, he wouldn’t share it. He suggested that she see him as soon as she could.

  “Will you need anything else?” Hollis said.

  Rhona shook her head.

  Hollis backed out of the room. Whatever Norman revealed would be important. She checked the time. If she moved smartly she could combine a visit to him with a stop at St. Mike’s and be back to pick up the girls.

  Again she exercised care. She took the Yonge subway to Bloor Station and the Bloor line to St. George Station, where she jumped on the southbound train just as the doors were closing. On each leg of the trip she positioned herself at the end of the car and surveyed the other passengers. While some men and women from the first train transferred to the second, none from the first embarked on the third. When she reached Union Station she detoured upstairs, where the magnificence of the soaring building always impressed her. Then she sauntered back downstairs, grabbed a coffee at Tim Hortons, and moved through the connecting passage to the rail link to Queen’s Quay. The whole process took more time than she’d anticipated, but she had to keep Norman safe.

  Inside his apartment, she hugged him and mourned the loss of the young man he’d once been.

  “Come. I made coffee and bought baklava from the grocery store next door.”

  Hollis felt her eyes widen. This man didn’t leave the building.

  Norman smiled. “You want to know how come I went out, when I told you that I never do.”

  “My face always gives me away,” Hollis said.

  “There’s a connection between the two buildings through the garage. I don’t go out. When I’m really paranoid, they leave my groceries downstairs.”

  Hollis helped herself to food and drink and waited for Norman to begin.

  “Long story,” he said and wriggled as if unsure about his position or where to begin.

  “Straight narrative is best,” Hollis said.

  “I used to paint the countryside.” He stopped.

  “You claimed that if it was good enough for the Group of Seven it was good enough for you,” Hollis said, smiling at the recollection.

  “Sometimes, if it was mild and I didn’t have money for a motel, I holed up in a barn or a deserted building. I always carried a bedroll and food,” Norman said.

  Silence stretched. Hollis decided to fill in the blanks and see if she was right. “You camped and woke up to find yourself in the middle of something bad?” she offered.

  Norman’s eyes widened and he straightened up. “How did you know? Who told you?”

  “Norman, don’t be paranoid. Where else would your story have been going?”

  “Okay. I am paranoid. You’re right. I watched terrible things happen. Because I’m a good and stupid person, I went to the police and told them what I’d seen.”

  “Stupid?”

  “If I’d thought it through, I would have known that those men would come after me if they figured out who’d squealed. I testified in camera. The police wanted me to move somewhere and take on a new identity, but how can an established painter do that?”

  “Do you want to tell me what you saw, or do you want to leave it?” Hollis asked, wondering if she wanted to know.

  “I saw five men from a rival biker gang murdered. I heard every word they said and saw every horrible moment.”

  Hollis wished she hadn’t asked.

  “What connection does Calum Brownelly have with this story?”

  “He was there, and early in the investigation the police called him ‘a person of interest.’”

  She didn’t want to ask the question, but she had to. “Was he one of the murderers?”

  As she waited for Norman’s answer, she thought that this was far worse than anything she could have imagined. No wonder Norman had worried about her and Jay’s safety. With the biker wars going on, kidnapping Jay would have given Hell’s Angels a trump card. Now she knew why he’d insisted she walk the child to school.

  Norman shook his head. “No, but he was there.”

  My God. Rhona had to know everything the moment she returned from St. Mike’s.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Hollis cautiously retraced her steps but alighted from the subway at Queen and made her way to the hospital. First she’d check on Ginny and her ex-boyfriend. An inquiry at the desk told her Larry Baptiste remained in Emerg. She swung out of the building and picked her way through the smokers in hospital gowns who dragged their IV poles or sat in wheelchairs sucking down the smoke they craved. She walked north and turned into the ambulance entrance to the emergency ward.

  For once a triage nurse was free and directed her through swinging doors and along a corridor to a four-bed holding area, where a police officer sat head down, nodding gently. Instead of waking him, she quietly peeked into each curtain-enclosed space. In the far corner she pulled back the curtain to see Ginny with Larry Baptiste’s hand enfolded in hers, slumped forward with her head resting on the bed. She was asleep. Hollis was about to let the curtain fall and tiptoe away when Ginny opened her eyes, stared unseeing, and then recognized Hollis.

  “How is he?” Hollis asked.

  “Unconsciousness still.”

  “Take a break and I’ll buy you breakfast downstairs,” Hollis offered.

  Ginny stroked the young man’s hand. “I’ll be right back, Larry,” she said and stood up.

  Hollis avoided the always packed coffee shop on the main floor and led Ginny through the maze of corridors to the entrance on Queen Street and a smaller, less popular Starbucks. They grabbed the corner booth next to the window. Ginny ordered carrot cake and a large latte.

  “Have you talked to his doctor?” Hollis asked.

  “I’m not a relative. I shouldn’t even be there. No one tells you anything unless you’re a relative.” Ginny sagged forward and the tiny table rocked and threatened to spill their coffee.

  Hollis steadied it. “Why do you think he climbed the scaffolding?”

  “I know he wasn’t going to kill me, and I’m sure he didn’t kill Sabrina. Probably didn’t think I’d let him in the building if he buzzed or in my apartment if he got in the building.”

  “Why would he think that you wouldn’t let him in?”

  Ginny shook her head. “I’ve been so stupid. You can’t imagine how stupid.” She considered her cup as if something important hid deep in the depths.

  Hollis waited. As a community college teacher, she’d developed patience and learned to wait. Students, anxious to reveal information, often followed circuitous torturous routes to reach the subject they really needed to talk about.

  Ginny picked cake crumbs from the paper napkin. “I thought I’d marry Larry and end up on the reserve with tons of kids and no life. We started to date in grade eight and planned to get married but I felt trapped, like I’d never have a life.” She took a mouthful and swallowed. “Larry is a good guy. He works, doesn’t drink, and loved me. I ruined everything.” Tears trickled down her cheeks.

  “What did you do?” Hollis said and wondered if she should have waited.

  Ginny sighed. “It’s so awful, I don’t even want to tell you.”

  This time Hollis said nothing.

  “We had a place to be alone in a building behind his parents’ house. He works as a mechanic in Battleford and he fixed up the shed as a garage so he could also work on the reserve and make more money. He was saving up so we could get married and start off with nice stuff,
and I knew where he hid the money he made on the reserve before he took it to the bank.” She took a ragged breath. “One night when everyone had gone to bed I took a bag of my stuff over to the shed, stole the money and his truck.” She stared at a spot on the floor waiting for Hollis to say something.

  Hollis didn’t comment.

  “It was a real old junker, so I didn’t get much past Battleford before it started to smoke. I chugged into a garage and asked the guy running the place if I could leave it there until I got back from Winnipeg. I didn’t stop in the Peg. I hopped on a bus to Toronto. Jigs, a guy who seemed really nice, talked to me in the bus depot and offered to help me get established. That’s how I ended up on the street, until Fatima rescued me but I already told you all that didn’t I?”

  “You did. I understand why Larry would think you wouldn’t let him in.”

  “I would have,” Ginny wailed. “Since Sabrina’s murder I’ve been figuring out how to go home. I never stopped loving Larry, but he must hate me for what I did and what I’m doing.”

  “How did he find you?”

  “After the murder I phoned my sister. I had to know how my family felt about me before I made plans to go home. When she said it would be okay, I asked her to send me a good luck charm I left at home.” She shook her head. “I know it’s crazy, but I figured it might keep me safe until I got back.”

  “But how did that connect to Larry?”

  “I didn’t know it, but Larry called my sister every couple of days asking if they’d heard from me. After my phone call, my sister told him where I was.”

  Ginny squeezed the paper cup so tight that coffee spurted upwards. “Maybe if he risked his life to climb that scaffolding in the dark, maybe he still loves me? If only he’d knocked on the window and told me it was him.”

  “Probably afraid you’d scream and call the police.”

  Ginny sighed. “Stupid me, that’s exactly what I would have done.”

  They finished and walked around the building and back into Emerg. When they reached Larry Baptiste’s bed, he was gone.