by Tim McGregor
“She isn’t hopeful. They’ve been seared by acid and left to rot.”
Odinbeck motioned at the stairs. “Go home, get some sleep.”
Mockler didn’t budge.
“You’re no good to anybody exhausted,” the senior detective ordered. “Go crash then come back at it with a clear head. I’ll mind the store while you’re gone.”
Mockler turned for the exit, then called back. “Call if anything comes up.”
“Yes dear. Now get outta here.”
~
Bristol Street was noisy with kids when he arrived home, a clutch of them getting in a last game of road hockey before they were called in to dinner. He loved seeing kids on the street. It always reaffirmed his notion that he had planted roots in the right neighbourhood. He watched them play for a moment. One of the boys yelled “car!” and they dragged the net out of the way until the car passed through. Quick as lightning, they were back to the game.
Coming through the side door, he found the kitchen clean but empty. No pots on the stove, no mess on the cutting board. He looked at his watch. Noise was strumming from beyond the kitchen, near the back of the house.
Christina was in the studio, engrossed in a painting. The back of the easel was facing the door so he couldn’t see what she was working on. The music was loud and she didn’t hear him enter. Mockler leaned on the door frame and watched her paint. She startled when she tore her eyes from the canvass.
“Sorry,” he said.
“How long have you been standing there?” Christina crossed to the shelf to turn down the music.
“I just got in.” He nodded at the easel. “Can I see?”
“When it’s done. You look tired.”
“I am.” He looked back toward the kitchen. “You didn’t make dinner?”
“What?” Christina looked at the clock. “I didn’t notice the time.”
“First one home starts dinner. That’s the rule, isn’t it?” It sounded petty the moment he said it and he saw her bristle at his tone.
“I’m sorry. I got caught up in the work.” Christina dipped the paintbrush into a can of solvent. “I wasn’t even sure if you’d be home.”
“Oh.”
She worked the brush against the side of the can. “You called yesterday to say you were working a double shift. I haven’t heard from you since.”
“Okay,” he said. He’d started a fight without even trying. Again. He chalked it up to exhaustion. “I need to hit the sack. What time are you up tomorrow?”
“Five. I’m going running with Sarah.”
He turned to go. “If I’m still snoring when you get up, wake me. Okay?”
“Do you want me to make you something? You must be hungry.”
“Nah. I’m more tired than hungry.” He went up the stairs, loosening his tie. “Sorry for snapping.”
She stepped out of the studio. “Are you all right?”
He stopped for a moment. His general rule was to not bring the work home with him but he considered telling her about it, about the awful things he had seen. He dismissed it. No one needed to hear that.
“Just tired,” he said. “Don’t forget to wake me, okay?”
Christina nodded that she would and returned to her studio.
9
“CAN YOU TURN it to the hockey game?” asked the man on the barstool.
“Hang on,” Billie stood behind the bar with the remote in hand. She normally kept the TV off during her shift but she wanted to catch the local news. Now that she had turned it on, the patron on the barstool expected to watch the game. She kept the volume low and waited to see if anything new had developed in the last day.
The grisly discovery of human remains in an old warehouse had broken all over the news outlets and Billie had followed it along faithfully. This, she guessed, was what the jolt from the other night was about. Mockler had to be one of the homicide detectives working on the case. It might explain the alarming zap she had experienced but she had no way of confirming that. Despite her weakness that first night, she had restrained from attempting another call.
Instead, she followed the news. Watching every TV report and checking the newspaper, hoping to catch a glimpse of him somewhere but so far she had seen nothing. There was only the spokesperson for the police department giving updates, and even those had dwindled quickly after the first day. There had been no details given, other than the fact that human remains had been discovered. Lacking any real information, speculation ran wild about what had occurred and who had perished. The name of Evelyn Dick, Hamilton’s most notorious murderer, had even been bandied about by more than a few wagging tongues.
“Nothing but bad news,” griped the man at the bar. “Now can we watch the game?”
“Alright, alright.” Billie turned the channel, killed the volume and turned up the music. “But no sound.”
The man soured. “How am I supposed to follow the action?”
“Use your imagination.”
The Gunner’s Daughter wasn’t a sports bar. It was more of a neighbourhood dive that hid its inner flaws under the ambient light of candles. Billie worked three to four shifts a week and she hated having the television on but decided to let Mr. Grumpy at the bar watch the game. With any luck, he’d get tired of the lack of audio and leave.
People shuffled in and shuffled out of the bar at a fair pace for a weekday night, keeping her busy. The grumpy hockey fan left and another patron claimed the empty barstool.
“Hi Billie,” said the new person. “How’s it going?”
She looked up from the taps to see Jen’s friend. The set-up from the other night.
“I’m good.” She came around to his end of the bar. “How are you, Nick?”
“You remembered.” He smiled and looked around. “Busy night?”
“Steady. Which is how I like it. What can I can get you?”
“A pint, please.”
“Of?”
Nick scanned the row of tap handles. “Surprise me.”
Hooking a glass under the tap, she poured a local brew and wondered what he was doing here. Was he meeting friends or just getting a drink after work? It was none of her business, she decided as she placed the pint before him.
“Thanks. Did you have fun at the Ship?”
“It was okay,” she said. “I was in a bit of a fog that night.”
“Oh?” He looked up from his glass. “How come?”
Billie shrugged. “I just get like that sometimes. Trapped in my own head, you know? Antisocial.”
“Ah,” he nodded. “Here I thought I was just boring you.”
“God, no. I was boring myself.” She wiped down the bar and flung out the cloth. “Say, you and Adam are pretty tight, huh?”
“Yeah. We go back a ways. Why?”
“Is everything okay with Adam and Jen?”
“The royal couple? They’re solid. Always have been.” He wiped the foam from his lips. “You think there’s trouble?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t. But Jen worries sometimes. She frets things. Details.”
“She’s a worrier. It’s just who she is. Like the barbecue they had? Jen spent the whole time fussing over the food and the drinks and the decor. I don’t think she sat down once.”
Billie laughed. “That’s Jen’s idea of fun; sweating the details. Hang on a second.”
She stepped away to serve another patron before drifting back to Nick. “You heading out somewhere tonight?”
“On my way home. Long day.” He sipped his pint. “We were talking about music at the party.”
“We were?” She couldn’t remember.
“Yeah. We were talking about Tilda Parish. You said you liked her last record.”
Billie scrambled her memory banks. Parish was popular on her playlists at home but she couldn’t remember their conversation about her. “I do.”
“She’s playing Friday night. At the Baltimore House. Do you want to go see her?”
She stiffened. Did
he just ask her out? She immediately shook her head. “I can’t. I have to work.”
“Sure.” The smile on his face dimmed. “Too bad. I think it’ll be a good show.”
The conversation withered and Billie withered along with it in the silence. Someone waved to get a drink, rescuing her from the awkwardness. Taking the order, she wondered why her immediate response was to decline him. Nick wasn’t bad-looking by any means. He wasn’t exactly her type but what did that matter? What was she holding out for?
The answer to that question bobbed to the surface of her mind and she scolded herself for it. Don’t be a fool.
She came back to Nick’s end of the bar. “You know what? I’d love to see that show. I’m pretty sure I can swap a shift with somebody.”
His face brightened. “Awesome. We’ll have fun.”
He seemed happy at the prospect and it bewildered her but it felt good to break out of her usual response to the world. It felt bold. Jotting her phone number on a napkin and sliding it across felt even bolder. “Call me tomorrow. We’ll go from there.”
Nick folded the napkin and slipped it into his pocket. “Cool.”
10
THE MAGDALENE WOMEN’S Shelter was a long shot but he needed to do something. Four days in and Mockler’s investigation had gone stone cold. Marla Tran had called to relay the bad news that she wasn’t getting anywhere. The remains were too corroded to reveal anything tangible. She was hopeful that a rough time-line could be estimated but those tests would take a while. Without that information, he couldn’t even pour through the backlog of missing persons case for any kind of match. The property records were a loss because of a clerical error and the foreign entity that owned the building currently was beginning to look like a shell company, the hollow kind. Even when he tracked down the proper owners, it could turn out to be a dead end. The building had stood empty for decades. Anyone could have had access to it.
The women’s shelter was four blocks from the crime scene. There was no sign or marker on the exterior announcing its services. This was a practical consideration for any women fleeing a bad situation who needed to stay hidden. Mockler had passed the building a million times before without ever really noticing it. So, he supposed, its camouflage worked.
The long shot was built on two shaky factors; the victim’s gender and the proximity of the shelter to the crime scene. Long shot or not, he needed to clear it from his list of possibilities before moving forward. Dismissed too soon, long shots began to nag at the back of one’s mind.
Ringing the buzzer, a grey-haired woman named Anna unlocked the door to let him in. She ushered the detective into her office once he explained why he was here.
“That’s a terrible business,” Anna said, motioning for him to take a seat. “And so close to here. How many bodies were there? The papers were unclear on that.”
“That was on purpose. We’re keeping the details quiet for now.”
“I see.” Anna folded her hands together. “So what can we help you with?”
Mockler looked around the office. “How long has the shelter been here?”
“Since the late sixties. Back then it was called the Magdalene House for Fallen Women. Can you believe that?”
“I can’t imagine that encouraged a lot of people to come for help.”
“It didn’t keep them away. A lot of women have passed through these doors over the years.” Anna turned to point at a framed photograph on the wall. A well to-do couple standing before the doors of the shelter. “The Magdalene was established by these people, Helen and Clarence Napier. She had the inspiration for the shelter, he had the pockets for it. Their family continues to endow it still.”
“They look like nice people,” he said.
“They were,” said Anna. “Helen especially. People still refer to her as a saint.”
“The world needs more saints.” Mockler cleared his throat, needing to get down to business. “Ms. McPhee, I wanted to ask about any women who have gone missing from the shelter over the years.”
“Are you serious?”
“Completely.”
The administrator lowered her eyes. “So the bodies you found, they were women?”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid that it was.”
“Why did you ask if I was serious about women going missing from here?”
“Most of them do, detective. A few of them stay in touch, especially the ones who thrive after their stay here. But the sad truth is that most of the women who come here simply drift away.”
“You lose track of them?”
“It’s more the other way around. They go back to their old life and they’re ashamed of it. They don’t stay in touch or even tell us where they’ve gone.”
“I see. How many are we talking about? Percentage-wise?”
“More than half.”
He chewed on that for a moment, then looked up. “Could a list be narrowed? Say, the women who had abusive husbands?”
“Most of the women who make it to our door are fleeing an abusive relationship.”
“Right.” He felt his shoulders sag. The long shot was turning into a wash-out. “Do you keep records of the women who come in?”
“We do, but we don’t insist on information. We don’t want to scare anyone off. A number of them use false names. At first anyway. Later, once we’ve gained their trust, they’ll offer that information. The women who only stay a few days, well…” The administrator let the statement trail off into silence.
Detective Mockler closed his notebook and dropped it back into his pocket.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” the administrator said.
He got up from the chair. “No, this has been helpful. Thank you.”
“You’re more than welcome to go through the records if you’d like.”
“I just might. Do your records go back to the founding of the shelter?”
“They did,” Anna said. “But we lost a great number of them a few years ago when our storage space flooded.”
“How much was lost?”
“Almost forty years worth. Now, the archive only goes back to about the mid-nineties.”
The date buzzed around in his skull for a moment but he didn’t know why. He shook the administrator’s hand and thanked her for her time.
~
He returned to the scene where the remains were found and crawled inside the hidden room. Using a flashlight, Mockler went over every inch of the dank space and worked his way backwards, out to the main cellar and up the stairs and traversing the main floor to all three entrances. He had hoped that the reverse track from the chamber out to the exterior of the building would give up some new insight or jog his brain to come at it from a different angle.
Standing outside the south entrance of the old warehouse, he looked out at the street with nothing to show for his efforts. Yellow police tape was still strung between lamp posts to keep the curious away. The cars on the street slowed as they passed the cordoned-off building before speeding on their way.
Mockler eased down to a crate near the wall and propped his elbows on his knees. Defeat wasn’t foreign to him, not in this line of work. Cases went unsolved or unprosecuted because of insufficient evidence. What burned his gut was the sickening feeling that he was failing before he had even started. These poor souls had been hidden away for so long and their histories were now his responsibility. Their truths, no matter how tragic, needed to be told but he was dropping the ball. They deserved better.
“Are you all right?”
Mockler startled at the voice. Lifting his head, he saw a dark-haired woman holding a little girl by the hand. Both were looking at him.
“Yes,” he said, rising quickly to his feet. “Thank you.”
The woman didn’t walk away. She looked up at the building behind him. The little girl watched the detective from behind her mother’s legs.
“You’re with the police,” the woman said.
“I am.
There’s nothing to see here, ma’am.”
“There is if you have eyes to see.”
Mockler straightened up. “Pardon me?”
The little girl tugged her mother’s hand. “Mama, can we go?”
“Yes, Esme. Say goodbye to the policeman.”
Mockler crossed the pavement toward them. “Hang on,” he said. “What did you mean by that? About seeing? Do you know something about this place?”
“I know the place is haunted,” she said. “It has been for a long time.”
The detective stopped. High profile cases like this attracted all kinds of people with crazy notions. The tip line at the office was already flooded with cranks and conspiracy theories about the discovery. The woman with the little girl was just one more.
“Haunted, huh? So you’ve seen ghosts knocking around this place?”
“You can feel them just walking by.” The woman looked up at him, searching his face. “Can’t you, being inside that building?”
“No. I can’t,” he said.
“Let’s go, mama,” the little girl tugged her mother’s hand. “I don’t like it here.”
The woman let her daughter pull her away but she glanced back at the detective. “Maybe you should find someone who can.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly.
He watched the pair walk away, wondering if he should ask her name. He dismissed the idea and headed back to his car. There was enough crazy on this case without piling on more. The car radio blared up when he turned the ignition. He killed the volume but made no move to put the car in gear.
The woman’s advice kept ringing through his head. What was wrong with a little crazy right now? Every avenue of investigation in this case had led nowhere. What did he have to lose?
Slipping the car into gear, he pulled out onto the street remembering that he actually knew someone who once claimed that she could see ghosts.
11
THE WOMAN ONSTAGE was strangely magnetic and Billie couldn’t take her eyes from her for the entire set. She had never seen Tilda Parish play before but the woman’s music had drifted in and out of Billie’s playlists over the last few years. She had heard from friends that the woman’s shows were otherworldly and she understood it now. Was it just stage presence that made her so compelling? Billie had spotted the woman before the show, chatting with someone at the bar. She seemed plain as day then but something changed the moment she took the stage. Compelling didn’t begin to explain it.
