Cut to the Chase

by Joan Boswell

“No. They told us to come early to find a job and a place to live. We’re semipro, and we don’t make enough to live on. Too bad, or we’d be better players. That’s the way it is. I have interviews this afternoon,” he said.

  “What do you do?”

  Jack stopped sorting his laundry. “Anything. I don’t have specialized training, but I’ve worked in fast food restaurants, and I can probably get something that will mesh with the training schedule.”

  “Good luck. I’m an artist, and my studio is here. If you need to know anything about the house or the neighbourhood, feel free to come up and ask me.”

  “You’re here every day. I forget that people work at home,” Jack said.

  “I do. Candace’s mother is here off and on during the daytime too.” She pointed to the ceiling, “She’s above you on the first floor. You may wake up at three in the morning and hear her. She’s a dancer and practices at all hours.”

  “It’s already happened. I figured college kids lived upstairs, although the music was kind of strange. I figured they were Latin Americans.” Jack’s eyes widened, and his mouth made a perfect “o” before he said, “Candace’s mother is a dancer?”

  Leaving him to digest his surprise, Hollis and MacTee headed back outside. Hollis didn’t know what had been causing Candace such distress, but it hadn’t just been her obsession with her brother’s whereabouts. Danson seemed like a normal, caring if somewhat fanatical guy. Hollis wondered why his sister was so concerned. What revelations was she about to hear?

  Two

  Back in the garden, reading the Globe’s pontificating columnists, learning what was happening in the city and immersing herself in the details of others’ lives no longer attracted Hollis. She had a real-life issue to deal with.

  Why had Danson disappeared?

  Maybe he’d run away from life’s responsibilities or done a flit with a gorgeous girl? Maybe the explanation was simply that he’d forgotten the charger for his cell phone. Men frequently took off. Modern life was hard on them. Whatever the last conversation had been about, it had to have been something serious, or Candace wouldn’t be panic-stricken. Since no answers danced before her eyes, she’d work.

  Upstairs, Hollis studied the large canvas. The day before, she’d saturated sheets of tissue paper with a transparent water colour. Now she tore the paper into smaller pieces and coated each fragment with the acrylic medium she used as an adhesive before layering it on the canvas. Laying the paper pieces over the gold paint allowed the gold to partially shine through. She wanted the viewer to wonder what lay beneath. She stood back and shook her head. What a mess. Tempted to grab a wide, commercial paint brush, slather white gesso over the entire surface and begin again, she resisted the urge and took her brushes to the sink in her tiny minimalist kitchen. Better to forget the painting for the time being and work on it later. Maybe inspiration would filter into her subconscious while she did something else.

  Something that made money. Dollars and cents mattered now that she’d relinquished a regular paycheque from the Ottawa community college where she’d taught history.

  She moved carefully to her work space, a long trestle table set up on one side of the room. Being almost six feet tall, she had stopped bumping her head on the sloping roof only after several weeks of living in the small apartment.

  At the trestle table, she created life-size papier-mâché animals. Mostly cats and dogs, but there was a waiting list for parrots and other birds. Although she loved malevolent crows, brightly coloured macaws appealed to a wider audience. The craft store on Yorkville Avenue sold them as fast as she produced them and charged astronomical sums. These beings weren’t “art”, but they engaged her energy, and she enjoyed the creative process. Each animal acquired a personality as she worked. When she finished but before she sent the creatures into the world, she attached appropriate name tags.

  Chickens, a flock of five, sat partially assembled on the oilcloth-covered table. She finished wrapping and stapling chicken wire around their wooden frames and reached into the container of thin plastic gloves. These not only protected her hands, they also allowed her to dip paper strips into paste without feeling the paste’s slimy consistency. She applied a first coat of paper strips.

  Not her day.

  The last chicken, supposed to have its head down and tail up as if pecking in the dirt, was lopsided. She ripped off the paper and pried the wooden frame apart. Before she forgot, she scribbled “Buy eyes” on her shopping list. The chickens would look great with beady black eyes. Buttons would do, but eyes would be better. The doll hospital sold a good variety. The question was, would buyers like chickens with blue or green or even violet eyes? Hollis felt her mood lighten when she considered making them with a variety of colours. Maybe she’d name the group—chicks flick eye tricks. Different rhymes, some scatological, raced through her mind, and she laughed aloud. Oops, this was scary. She definitely needed to get out more if this was the kind of conversation she was having with herself.

  While she cleaned up, she listened to the noon news on the radio.

  Lunch time. She headed downstairs. MacTee bounded ahead of her.

  When she knocked on the shiny black door, she noted a patina of small handprints on the lower half. Maintaining a pristine house and a happy toddler were mutually exclusive goals. She smiled. Invited to enter, she stepped into the kitchen, which was immediately to the left of the front hall. The entryway’s cream-painted wainscotting continued in the kitchen. The glass-fronted cupboards with old-fashioned brass knobs, green slate floor and green granite countertops gave the room a warm country kitchen appeal. Elizabeth, bibbed and waiting, sat in the high chair beside an antique pine table.

  “Hi Howis, hi Tee.” Elizabeth accompanied her greeting with a barrage of spoon-banging on her high chair tray.

  “Sorry if I’m late. Sometimes time escapes me when I paint.”

  “Elizabeth napped longer than usual. We haven’t started yet,” Candace said.

  Clean chinos and a pressed blue button-down had replaced the baggy jeans and stained T-shirt. Candace had made an effort to return to her “take charge” persona, but the tight lines around her mouth and raised shoulders told another tale.

  Impatience gripped Hollis. She knew that Candace would feel better once she told what she thought had happened to her brother. Unspoken fears stripped away your confidence and your equanimity like piranhas moving in for a kill. If only they could bypass all the domesticity and get on with the story.

  “Grilled cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks, applesauce and tea okay?” Candace asked. She cut bread into strips and handed them to the child, who abandoned her spoon to scoop them up with pudgy fingers. “I’ve pretty much given up gourmet delights for the duration. I did try her with smoked salmon and capers, both of which she adored, and sushi, which she didn’t. Probably just as well. If the experts suggest pregnant women give up sushi, I’m sure children should avoid it too.” She was babbling.

  “Anything I don’t prepare for myself is wonderful.” Hollis munched a carrot stick and watched Elizabeth mash the bread on the tray before she dropped it to MacTee, who snatched it in midair.

  “That should keep her entertained if not well-nourished,” Candace said. Candace’s cell phone shrilled as she motioned for Hollis to sit at the table.

  After she flipped it open and said hello, a range of emotions that Hollis identified as relief, anticipation and anger sped across Candace’s face. “No, this is not a good time to call. I don’t give to charities that phone.” She clicked the phone shut. “Damn. I hoped it would be Danson.”

  “I thought about Danson. I remember his intensity when he talked about lacrosse. You said he had other passions—what’s he doing that worries you so much?”

  Candace gave Elizabeth a bowl with raisins and chopped apricots along with more cutup bread before she spoke. “You’re right. Danson reacts with passion when he loves or hates something. Even as a little boy, he fixated on issues, particularly inj
ustices, and always wanted to take corrective actions.” She grimaced. “You may think it’s weird that he’s an adult, and we’re so close. But there’s a reason—I feel responsible for him.”

  Responsible—an odd word to use to describe a relationship with a functioning adult man. “Why is that?”

  “I’m more like his mother than his sister. Poppy isn’t maternal. I’m glad she had us, but given her personality, it surprises me that she did. I’d say she’s never visualized herself in a traditional mother role. One small example—from the get-go, she insisted we call her Poppy. She’s never married, never lived with a man.”

  Speaking of men, there were no signs of one in Candace’s apartment, nor had Hollis ever heard Candace mention Elizabeth’s father. Maybe single parenting was genetic, or maybe, if that’s what your mother did, it was what you did. Interesting idea. Not that she could ask. That sort of information had to be volunteered.

  “Poppy always provided for us, by hook or by crook.” Candace frowned. “I’m not sure she always draws the line between the two and, however politely I inquire, she won’t discuss her financial affairs. Anyway, that’s beside the point. The day she and Danson came home from the hospital, she passed him to me.” She paused, widened her eyes and raised her eyebrows. “I was seven.”

  “You cared for him by yourself?” Where had the social service agencies been?

  “Not exactly. To give you the background, Poppy was fifteen when I was born. My grandparents opposed her decision to keep me. When she insisted, they decided they didn’t want her living with them or even staying in the same community. Unwed mothers weren’t part of their world.” Her lips drew down. “I never got to meet them. They died when I was five, and unfortunately Poppy hadn’t reconciled with them. To give them their due, they weren’t prepared to allow Poppy and me to suffer real hardship. They paid Adele, a housekeeper who’d worked for the family, to step into the breach and care for me while Poppy finished school.”

  “Times were different then,” Hollis said. How would her mother have dealt with a similar situation? She felt sure her mother would have chosen abortion. It said something for Poppy that she’d made a decision that was long-term, life altering and took strength, particularly if you weren’t a maternal sort of person.

  “To continue my story, seven years later, when Poppy became pregnant again, she persuaded Adele to return. By then, the woman was over eighty and couldn’t lift or bend. I did those jobs.”

  “You must have been a responsible kid.”

  Candace pursed her lips. “I would have preferred to have been just a kid, but I didn’t have a choice. Anyway, now you know why I think of Danson as my baby. As for his personality—from day one he was a crusader. Always on the side of the underdog. In the Middle Ages, he would have galloped off to battle the Infidels.”

  “We need those passionate people, or society would never change.”

  “I wish Danson wasn’t one of them.” Candace’s lips tightened. “Oh, God, if only Danson was an ordinary guy.”

  “Danson coming?” Elizabeth said. She smiled at Hollis and repeated, “Danson coming,” hopefully.

  “No sweetie, not now.” Candace teared and gulped. “Maybe soon. Eat your raisins.”

  Elizabeth’s smile disappeared, but she obediently bent to her time-consuming task, picking up raisins one by one.

  “Tell me about his passions, the ones you think are dangerous.”

  “Give me a minute,” Candace said, struggling to maintain her composure. Once she’d taken several deep breaths, she continued. “Let me set the scene. One Saturday evening three years ago when Danson and Angie Napier, the love of his life, were sitting in an outdoor café on the Danforth planning their wedding, Angie was killed when she was caught in the crossfire between two gangs. Later, Danson discovered Angie’s killer had been convicted of another crime, deported, returned and, within months, killed Angie.”

  “How could that happen?”

  “We deport criminals to their home countries after they serve minimum time in our prisons. They reenter Canada with phony passports. They’re mostly men, and frequently they commit more crimes. Our immigration officers don’t do a great job.”

  “How does that connect to Danson?”

  “Since that terrible Saturday, he’s waged his own crusade. He track downs the men or women who’ve been convicted, deported and slithered back into Canada.”

  “Are there many?”

  “The numbers would horrify you.”

  “How does he locate them?”

  Candace toyed with the knife with which she’d cut up the bread. “I haven’t asked many questions. The more I know, the more I worry, and I do enough of that. I gather it’s mostly through the street grapevine. That’s why he works as a bouncer; he gets to know people and hears things.”

  “You said passions. That’s plural. What else?”

  “I think it’s because of Angie that he worries about us and does his best to keep us safe. He goes to great lengths to make sure we aren’t connected to his tracking activities.”

  “All done, all done,” Elizabeth squawked. “Down, get down.”

  Candace sighed. “Conversations with kids around are fragmentary at best. Sometimes I think it’s a recipe for early Alzheimer’s.” She tapped the toes of Elizabeth’s sneakers. “I have to buy shoes for her today. Her daycare sent a note home last week saying she needed bigger ones, but I haven’t had time.” She attempted a smile. “I don’t want them to set the shoe police on me.” She unlatched the high chair’s tray with one hand, clutched Elizabeth and eased her to the floor.

  “I understand. When you have a full-time job, you do your shopping when you can.”

  The stress lines around Candace’s mouth relaxed slightly, and she smiled fondly at Elizabeth. “Elizabeth has extra-wide feet. Finding the right ones will be difficult.”

  Elizabeth studied her feet and lifted one for Hollis to inspect. “New shoes. Lizabet get new shoes.”

  Despite the tension in the room, it enchanted Hollis to hear the toddler refer to herself in the third person.

  Candace brushed the crumbs from Elizabeth’s jeans before raising her gaze. “With every passing moment, I’m more fearful. You can’t imagine the physical effect it’s having on me.”

  “I don’t understand what it is that you fear,” Hollis said.

  “I’m afraid something terrible has happened to him. I’m scared to death.” While Candace talked, she repeatedly snapped the cell phone open and shut.

  “I don’t get it. Exactly what do you think might have happened to him?”

  Candace closed her eyes for a moment as though trying to block out something she didn’t want to face. “I don’t even want to admit I’m thinking this,” she said, then stopped and took a deep breath. Finally her gaze met Hollis’s. “It’s the unidentified murdered man they’re talking about in the news. I keep thinking, ‘what if it’s Danson?’”

  Three

  Hollis recalled the article she’d been reading when Candace had come outside. It had speculated that a mutilated and unidentified man’s murder might have been connected to the five male drug addicts who’d been killed in the last months. She shivered. It was a terrible idea, but she understood why Candace thought Danson’s obsession with tracking could have drawn him to the attention of the wrong people. He could be the unidentified man.

  Time to deal with practicalities. “Exactly when did you last talk to him?”

  “Sunday night, October 15. Almost two weeks ago. The day after the four of us had lunch in the garden. He doesn’t work Sundays, and he always calls, even if he’s talked to me the day before.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Said he was onto something—that he was closing in. Lot of excitement in his voice.” Candace shook her head. “That’s what’s frightening me.”

  “Closing in on what?”

  “I don’t know.” Candace took a deep breath. “What I’m about to ask is really
off the wall. It’s a huge imposition. I apologize, but I don’t know where else to turn.” Hollis suspected she knew what was coming. “Would you help me track him down?”

  Candace hurried on before Hollis could respond. “You can say no, and I’ll understand, and we’ll still be friends. But you do have experience. You have helped solve two murders.” She placed her hands palm to palm in the classic prayer pose. “I’m praying that you won’t refuse.”

  Hollis, who was holding her sandwich halfway to her mouth, lowered it to the plate. Finding missing persons—that’s what private investigators did. Not amateurs. On the other hand, Candace was right. If she wrote a comprehensive resume, it would say, “amateur sleuth who assisted in solving two murders”. Most women didn’t possess that skill set.

  Candace needed her. Thinking selfishly, focusing on Danson’s disappearance would allow her subconscious to work out her painting block. Moreover, concentrating on someone else’s problem might stave off the black dogs.

  “Where do we start?” Hollis said.

  Candace clapped her hands. “Thank you, thank you.” Relief filled her eyes.

  Hollis had felt like that when a plane she’d been on had managed to land safely after its landing gear failed to lock into place. Feelings of absolute relief and profound gratitude along with a determination never to take life for granted.

  “What does Danson do when he fingers these criminals?” Hollis said.

  “Thank god he’s smart enough not to play superhero. He reports them to the appropriate authorities. Twice, when nothing happened, he contacted the Star, and it did an exposé.”

  “Are many people aware that he does this?”

  “I hope there isn’t a single person, but I suspect many people know. That’s one reason I’m worried.” Candace hesitated and, glanced at Elizabeth as if seeking confirmation that what she was about to say was important. “Since he left, I’ve had calls asking for him. When I say he doesn’t live here, the callers—there are different ones—hang up without identifying themselves. It’s frightening me.”