Dark Matter

by R. D. Cain

  “Do you think he’s upset at all about killing Chavez?”

  “He hasn’t said much of anything.”

  “Well, good luck. I’ll be there as soon as I can, hopefully a few hours.”

  “Over and out, Mr. Carscadden.”

  “Over and out.”

  After they parked, Nastos and Carscadden assumed positions next to Dennehy and Byrne, who were slurping coffees from the command post truck.

  Dennehy waved a hand. “Go get something to warm yourselves up, guys.”

  Nastos shook off the offer; Carscadden ignored it, his eyes searching the treeline. “Why here? The other girls were in highly populated areas.”

  Nastos could only guess. “The reasons these idiots do anything might never be apparent. They’re just mental insects.”

  Dennehy asked, “Where the hell did the dogs go?”

  Byrne said, “They were in front of the line.” They both craned their heads around, trying to orient themselves.

  Nastos motioned for everyone to follow him. “I hear barking.” He began a slow jog in the direction of the search line.

  One of the dog handlers sped off, running down the narrow paved bike trail that weaved along next to the river. Both dogs had run through the water and had not returned. As the cop charged through the shallows, he sank unexpectedly up to his waist and nearly lost his balance. He steadied himself and finished the crossing. He called out to the dog — “Boomer!” — but the dog didn’t return. It just kept barking. A cadaver dog barking and not returning to the handler wasn’t an optimistic sign. The cop climbed the far bank, the other dog handler following with two more cops.

  Nastos was going at full speed. He ran down to the riverbank, found the shallowest area to cross and bulldozed into the frigid water. Lindsay had become his daughter. He felt all of the same feelings of loss and fear that he would feel if it were her. All the time he had spent staring at Lindsay’s picture, seeing a face that looked like family, speaking to her and asking her where she was. Part of him didn’t want to go and face his worst fear — the same reason he didn’t want the case in the first place. If she’s dead, Carscadden, I’ll never forgive you for dragging me into this.

  Carscadden followed him across, stride for stride. The far bank was slipperier than the first cop had made it look. Nastos had to use his hands to scramble up. From behind a thick wall of evergreens, before the terrain climbed to a nearly vertical slope, Nastos saw the two white sneakers, filthy with ground-in dirt, the kind that looked days old. Dried blood was caked on her white hands, her hair matted was and dark. The dog handler nearly shoved Nastos right off of his feet when he darted out of the bushes, keying the mic to his radio. “Get the medics here, Command. She’s alive, you copy that?”

  Nastos and Carscadden followed the cop back in, taking positions on either side of Lindsay. One of the dogs had cuddled against her lap, the other was standing next to her protectively. They only moved when the first handler gave a whistle through his teeth and said a command sharply in German; then they backed off. Lindsay had been drugged, her eyes unable to focus, her head rolling from side to side, a pale hand sloppily trying to push the hair out of her way.

  Nastos helped her, moving her hair back and looking into her small, dirty face.

  “Lindsay, we’re going to get you home.”

  “Daddy?”

  Nastos said, “Yeah, baby. Everything is going to be all right.”

  33

  Four cops and two paramedics carried the girl across the water in a canvas stretcher. A cop had backed the ambulance as close to the water as he could get; another was in the back, trying to find the controls to jack up the heat. The medics loaded her in. Nastos jumped in the side door and watched as they loaded her onto the stretcher. It was taking a while to get an IV in. She was so cold. As they cut her clothes off, Dennehy supervised, standing at the back of the ambulance, making sure there was as little disruption to future evidence as possible. She was stark naked in front of the two medics and Nastos for a brief moment before Dennehy grabbed a blanket from the rack and draped it on her. One medic handed the cut clothes to Dennehy, who was waiting with paper evidence bags. Carscadden was hanging back, watching.

  Nastos felt a wave of relief, then surprise when he saw that she didn’t have a word carved on her chest. Sorrow, Joy. Where’s Girl?

  Lindsay was coming to, her eyes focusing. The female medic stood up abruptly and pushed her way out to the back door, shoving past Dennehy. When she made eye contact with the police supervisor, she waved him over.

  “You’re driving — I need Gareth in back with me.”

  The supervisor was older, overweight, with gold epaulets on his shoulders. He didn’t respond verbally, just ran over, heaving his body from side to side. He shoved his way through a bunch of cops, the entire ambulance rocking as he poured himself in the driver’s seat and shoved the seat back. He craned himself to peak through the front seats and shouted back, “Centenary on Ellesmere?”

  The medic checked her temperature and showed her partner the results. She shouted back, “She’s going to Sunnybrook.”

  Nastos shook his head. Sunnybrook was the top trauma centre in the country. He asked, “Is she that how bad she is?”

  The medic shook her head. “I think she’ll survive the trip. The problem is that when you’re really cold, movement can cause dysrhythmia. We’re going to drive slow and easy. If she’s still alive when we get there, I think she has a chance. Sunnybrook is the best emerg hospital; let’s give her the best shot.”

  Nastos wanted to touch Lindsay’s hand, but hesitated, hovering over her.

  The medic asked, “How long has she been out here?”

  Nastos shook his head. “Too long.”

  The medic called up to the driver, “Slow and easy, boss.”

  Dennehy stepped back, gave Nastos a thumbs-up to stay with Lindsay, and slammed the doors shut.

  Carscadden waited for the ambulance to start its run, then returned to the car, thinking about the Bannermans.

  After the explosion, Chavez wrapped his shirt as tightly around his amputated limb as he could, using his one hand and his teeth to pull it tight. There were only two arteries in the wrist, and he was able to control the bleeding with pressure for the time being. He jogged across the fields, staying well clear of the roadways. Through lines of trees, over slanted countryside, he saw the shape of a house ahead and approached with caution from the rear. He closed the distance, mindful of the back windows. There were lights on inside, but no signs of movement. A tarped, in-ground swimming pool took up most of the backyard along with a small shack in the fenced-in area. Through the breezeway between the garage and the house he could see a red Ford pickup truck parked in the driveway.

  Chavez stayed in the treeline as long as he could, then slunk up to the back wall. careful not to get any blood on the house. His arm ached; the shirt was darkened by a seeping red stain. His movement was too much for clotting to occur. There was only so much time before he lost consciousness. He needed surgery but there was no way he was going to walk in the front doors of a hospital.

  A sound in the kitchen window above his head startled him. He carefully backed away from the wall and peeked in. An elderly woman was doing dishes. He exhaled. This is going to be easy. He straightened his back, approaching with purpose under the breezeway to the side door. Chavez watched inside through the glass pane in the door for a period of time, listening. The old woman had turned many times in the kitchen, moving from the stove to the fridge and to the counter, and never noticed him. There was no sign of anyone else and she seemed half-blind.

  When her back was turned, he drove his elbow through the window in the door and reached in to undo the lock. She recoiled at the noise and turned to face him. He saw the confusion in her face; then she began to back away. Chavez considered going through her fridge for food, decidin
g against it. He checked the hooks in the wall next to the door, tossing coats and purses down the stairs to the basement, until he found a set of Ford vehicle keys.

  “Are these for the truck?”

  She peeked around the corner, an eight-inch chef’s blade held up to her chest by two gnarled, liver-spotted hands. “Take it! And get the hell out of here.”

  “That’s the general idea.” He turned for the door, then stopped. “I’ll be back when you’re sleeping. After I rape you, I’ll burn your house down.”

  Carscadden followed the ambulance north on Morningside to the 401, where it went west to the Bayview exit. After it turned south, through the red light, it pulled away and he didn’t see any point in trying to keep up. He called Bannerman; his wife answered the house phone.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Claire, Kevin Carscadden.”

  “Yes? What is it?”

  She sounded nervous, and her speech was slurred. Hell, it was during the day and she was already half-pissed. They were both probably too drunk to drive, especially the way they were going to drive.

  “You’re making me a promise right now, Claire, understand?”

  “Is this about Lindsay? Oh, god.” She was already starting to cry.

  “Claire, Claire, stay with me here. Call a limo service, Claire. I need you to promise that you aren’t going to drive to —”

  Carscadden could hear Craig’s voice in the background. He must have come in when he heard her cry out. He shouted as if he was angry and wrestled the phone from her. “Who is this?” He sounded like he’d had a few as well.

  Carscadden said, “Craig, we found her.” Carscadden hardly noticed the thick, hot tears pouring down his face. Blinking so he could drive, with the phone on one hand, using his sleeves to wipe his nose, he put the phone on speaker and set it down.

  “Oh, god.”

  “She’s alive, Craig. We think she’s going to be okay.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Promise me you’ll call a limo. You’re in no shape to drive.”

  “I’m okay —”

  “No bullshit, Craig. This is too important. If you get in an accident —”

  “Okay, okay. I won’t drive.”

  “She’s in an ambulance going to Sunnybrook. You won’t get in to see her for an hour anyway, so you may as well spend the time at home waiting for the limo, packing her up some fresh clothes, a toothbrush, stuff like that.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I’ve got some ideas — don’t you worry about that now. You just get your wife down here safe and sound. There’s a girl down here who could use her mom and dad.”

  Nastos and Dennehy followed the ambulance crew in. Inside there was a waiting room like any hospital’s, but ambulances were in and out frequently, with the city’s nightly shooting and stabbing victims. Most of the victims would be next week’s suspects and even the rookie doctors treated them that way. No sympathy, slow to give narcotics for pain — this type of training ground made it easy for them to become dispassionate and adept at treating people by the statistics and numbers provided by various machines and lab results rather than by their pleas and mumbles.

  When it was a legitimate victim, someone like Lindsay, who could have been anyone’s daughter in the room, the approach was clearly different. A parade of specialists, pediatricians, anesthesiologists — all the instructors who would generally hang back and let the rookies learn — were the ones pushing their way to the front, showing the new recruits the way the pros do it: fast, flawless, compassionate.

  Dennehy and Nastos guarded the entry point in the trauma room, their backs against the glass, curtained-off wall. Dennehy was not going to give up continuity on the off-chance she said something to identify who had dropped her. Nastos already had that part figured out; he was already trying to get it all back on Anthony.

  No one in the room was paying any attention to them; they were used to cops being around. Nastos said to Dennehy, “Anthony Raines. This is all his fault.”

  Dennehy shrugged. “Blake searched his house, found nothing. You went in there, found nothing and got arrested. We can’t go there again without a warrant and serious evidence or we’d get our asses sued off and lose any evidence anyways.”

  “Bring him in for an interview. Interrogate him.”

  Dennehy lamented, “Tomorrow. But I need to know everything you know. If I’m going to do this and try to trip him up, I need to be prepared, and with no evidence we’re basically looking for him to make a mistake.”

  “Yeah, I know, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  Dennehy gave Nastos a sideways glance. “You’re not thinking of taking matters into your own hands, are you?”

  “No. Once the Bannermans get here, I’m going home, to be with my wife and daughter.” Nastos glanced down at his soaking pants. “And to change my clothes. I’m a friggin’ mess.”

  After half an hour, the hospital had a room ready for her upstairs in the ICU. She’d be in there for at least a few days as a precaution, mostly because Nastos had explained the circumstances under which she had been held. They were going to do a sexual assault kit, then get her cleaned up.

  After the doctors had gone, neither Nastos nor Dennehy let Lindsay leave their sight. They sat in the ICU family room, where they could watch through the safety glass. Carscadden arrived with the Bannermans. Claire had both hands locked on her husband, one on his hand, the other his upper arm. She only left him to touch the glass and stare longingly into the ICU. Bannerman dropped a tote bag and joined her at the glass. They seemed conflicted, torn between wanting to burst through the glass to be with her and fear that in her frail state the slightest touch could cause her to break into pieces.

  Nastos noticed the lights in the ICU were dim to encourage a calm, quiet environment. Only a weak overhead light illuminated her. From the waiting room, with the light over her like a halo, her head turned at an angle, her eyes closed, her index finger pointing down with a pulse oximeter, the effect was of a fourteenth-century gothic painting, the kind where the Virgin Mary would be pointing down as she ascended to heaven.

  Craig said, “Well, I’m not waiting here all night.” He opened the door into the unit and walked up to her. To Nastos, it looked as if he was expecting to see her dead — slow, measured paces, not wanting to wake her. A nurse saw him and moved to intercept: a big, very dark Jamaican lady with blue scrubs and a pink stethoscope around her neck. Craig hesitated only slightly when she approached, trying to sidestep her. She gripped his hand and led him to Lindsay’s bed, putting her arm on his back so he could get in closer.

  When Bannerman touched Lindsay’s hand, her eyes opened. Despite the drugs, the sleeplessness, the month she’d been through, she smiled. Nastos watched her mouth form the word Daddy for the second time that night.

  Nastos felt the tears welling up in his eyes. He couldn’t hear was they were saying and decided he didn’t want to know. It was private. Claire went through the door, trying to be quiet for the other people in the ward who didn’t have the same prospects of recovery that Lindsay had.

  Nastos turned to Carscadden. “I think we can go.”

  Carscadden agreed. “Yeah, let’s get out of here. You need a ride, Dennehy?”

  Dennehy was reading a message on his BlackBerry. “Nastos, one sec.” He dialed a number on his phone, holding a finger up for Nastos to stay a minute. “Yes this is Detective Dennehy, I just got this weird message from Detective Byrne. Right — and that’s right from the forensics guys? Oh sorry, yeah, you are Forensics, I misunderstood. So it wasn’t there. Just a hand. And it could not be explained any other way. Hacksaw? Jesus Christ, can you believe that? Okay, well, I should let you get back to it. Right, thanks. Bye.”

  He stuffed the phone into his pocket. “What do you say, for shits and giggles, we go accost Anthon
y in the middle of his TV show, just to screw with his mind?”

  “Sure. What’s the occasion?” Nastos asked.

  “The Durham forensic cops did a search of the fire scene. No body. Just a severed hand and a hacksaw.”

  Nastos heard the words Dennehy had said, but found them hard to believe. “He sawed his own hand off to get away?”

  “This guy must be a board-certified psychopath.” Dennehy paused for a moment. “So you said you cuffed him just to hold him, right? You didn’t torture him or anything, did you?”

  Nastos felt his blood run cold. “Torture him — are you kidding me?”

  “Well, they found a few stray fingers. It kind of makes me wonder how you persuaded him to tell you where to find Lindsay.”

  While Nastos could see that Dennehy had figured it out, he seemed content to play stupid for the time being. “This guy is nuts. Who knows what he was doing in those last minutes.”

  Dennehy smiled at him. “I need a drink. You?”

  “I need one — only I need to get Anthony more.”

  Dennehy shook his head. “We talked about that —”

  “Okay, we don’t arrest him. But like you said, we can stop by his show and ask him a few questions just to screw with his mind. You’ll know by one look on his face if he’s our guy or not. I just want to go home to change first.”

  34

  The drive to Toronto for Chavez was uneventful. One fire truck passed him, on its way to the house, but no police cars. He exited at Highway 48, going down to the 401, then the Don Valley Parkway to the Bayview exit. Traffic was light near Anthony’s street, Castle Frank, where he went south to Gerrard. Bruce’s animal clinic was closed, but he lived above it. Chavez had the phone number.

  He dumped the pickup truck in a tow-away zone and rushed into the clinic. He pressed the buzzer and waited. A chill went up his amputated stump to his elbow. For the first time, he had the luxury to consider the chance of infection and of losing the rest of the arm. He hit the buzzer again, three quick presses, and finally saw the light come on. Bruce’s eyes appeared in the glass, then the door swung open.