The Dead Letter (25 page)

67.

“I brought you a playmate.”

Anne could see nothing in the stark darkness of the room. But she heard the words, and her skin crawled. She recognized the voice. Jamie MacFarlane's.

Anne heard the snap of a match and saw the flicker of a kerosene lamp. Then she heard a roar of anger. Her eyes hadn't quite focused, but her head turned toward the sound. A hairy tattooed arm lunged toward her. Behind it she saw a ragged tooth and the weathered face of Cutter Underhay. Instinctively, she rolled and skittered away but fetched up against a cabinet. She shut her eyes and braced for the clasp of hands around her throat or the thrashing of his fists. Then she heard a metallic clatter, a sharp clank, and a litany of vile profanities and foul oaths.

“Nice reflexes, Ms. Billy Darby,” said MacFarlane. Then he turned to Cutter. “Play nice, Cutter.”

Cutter's vulgarities and curses dwindled into unintelligible hate-stoked grumbles. It was only then that Anne gathered the courage to turn around and face him. He glared at her from across the room. Looking around for the first time, Anne found herself in a small, crude cabin that, at one time, hunters or woodcutters might have used as a refuge. Now it was abandoned and in disrepair. A single kerosene lantern illuminated the interior and threw creepy dancing shadows whenever a draft of air breached a crack in the flimsy wallboards.

A rusted wood stove stood by a side wall. The pipe from the firebox had disconnected from it and dangled from its hole in the roof. The floor was water-stained and soiled with animal droppings and bits of pine cones shucked by squirrels. An old beer case lay in a remote corner. Several beer bottles littered the corners. A few had been broken. And there was a dearth of furniture. One wood table stood in the centre of the room. One usable chair was pulled next to it; the only other seat had a broken back. An ancient metal frame bed butted the long wall opposite the door. A dank mattress lay on top.

Still cringing against an old floor cabinet, Anne's eyes remained fixed on the bed. Cutter had retreated there. He sat on the floor, leaning against the side of it, his right arm crooked on the frame as if poised to leap, his left arm bent to grasp the tubular metal headboard. One handcuff held his wrist; the other encircled both bed and post. His failed attempt to attack Anne had been just inches beyond his reach.

MacFarlane chuckled a bit at the rage in Cutter and the terror in Anne. Then he reached out and pulled the tape from her mouth. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her across the floor to the other corner of the metal bed. He snapped a cuff over her left wrist and secured the other cuff to frame and post, just as Cutter's had been.

“There,” he said. “Get comfortable. You'll be here until tomorrow.”

“What happens then?” she asked.

“You'll find that out tomorrow,” he said, removing the tape from her hands and her ankles.

“That better?”

Anne nodded. “Can I have some water?”

“No,” he said flatly. Then his cell phone rang. When he looked at the caller display, his brow crumpled in thought and displeasure. The phone continued ringing. He glared at it as if it were a personal affront, but he took the call, answering brusquely, “Wait.”

With a satisfied glance at his two prisoners, MacFarlane walked outside. The sagging door dragged across the threshold. With a final lift and jerk, he slammed it shut and walked toward the car. The evening was clear and moonless. A damp air had drained vigour from the blackness of the sky. The dim stars had disappeared. The strong ones had grown indistinct and dull. MacFarlane put the phone to his ear and listened to the tirade his caller had launched against him. He feigned patience and said nothing. The rant finally lost some impetus and spiralled into pointless repetition.

Finally, MacFarlane spoke: “I'll meet you in half an hour. Don't be stupid! You're up to your ass in this, too.”

MacFarlane never returned to the cabin. Anne and Cutter heard his car start and listened curiously to the rattly sound as it backtracked over the path. The sound grew fainter, and finally it disappeared below the rustle of leaves and the scraping of branches in the October breeze.

The day had been balmy and pleasant, but as the evening progressed, the balminess turned damp, and the agreeable temperature grew chilly. The lamplight fluttered madly in the drafty cabin. Both prisoners had grown quiet and reflective. Cutter stared somewhat blankly at the shape-shifting of the shadows. He looked like a wound spring. Anne's fear had subsided, but the foreboding atmosphere of her tenuous situation replaced it. It was almost as if she could hear a clock ticking, like dedicated footsteps, toward an ill-fated hour. She couldn't afford to wallow in the luxury of feeling sorry for herself. She needed answers, and she needed them soon. Anne became consumed with uncovering those answers. It was a curiosity bred in desperation. It was undirected and unquenchable, and Cutter's continuing, sullen silence fanned her anger and determination. Finally, she could stand his indifference no more, but she took care to choose her words and tone judiciously.

“‘We're going to find out tomorrow.' What did he mean by that?”

“You're the detective,” he said. He responded slowly as if her inquiry had diverted him from an important engagement. “You figure it out.”

“Look, Cutter, getting in each other's face may be an amusing way to round out the evening, but we've got more important troubles to work out. Things don't look so good.”

“Ya think…”

Cutter's sarcasm rankled Anne, but she suppressed the urge to snap back and replied as calmly and as low-key as she could manage.

“You got a plan?” she asked.

“Yeah, I have a plan.”

“What is it?”

“Kill you…kill MacFarlane…or vice versa.”

Cutter turned away and sank into some dark private thought.
So much for the voice of reason
, she thought. She needed a different tack.
What if I provoked him?
she thought.
That might open him up
.

“You're so full of shit, Cutter. Kill me? You had your chances. You blew them all. You had me pinned down in your own club just over a year ago…and what happened? I got back what you stole from me. Oh yeah, and there was that fire I started that almost burned your club down. Remember that? And you tried again two days ago. You blew up my car and almost killed my daughter! You aren't smart enough to kill me, are you?”

“You got lucky last year. A fluke. And that explosion? That wasn't me. MacFarlane engineered that fiasco. Then he framed me for that job.”

“So you say. Why would he do that?”

“I don't know, but we've done a lot of business together over the years. He tipped me off. Said that the cops had a warrant and one of my boys framed me. He said he could hide me until the dust settled.”

“Why would he double-cross you? That doesn't make sense.”

“I said I don't know, but it had to be him.” Cutter sounded genuinely perplexed. “All I know is that he wants you dead and me dead.”

“You know his plan?”

“Bits and pieces. He likes to show how smart he is.”

“You want to fill me in? Maybe we can figure something out.”

“He took me up here in the trunk of his car.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Soon as he opens the trunk I know where I am. This is my cabin. My uncle left it to me in his will along with his business at The Hole in the Wall. I haven't been here since I was a kid.” Cutter grinned and sounded almost excited.

“Forget the memory lane flashback.”

“Anyway, he pulls his gun and handcuffs me. Later he gets braggin' and tells me about the frame. I ask him what he's goin' to do. He says his story is going to be that he got a tip about my whereabouts, which is here, and that I had grabbed you, but he arrives too late. Supposedly I've already killed you. Then he kills me in the shootout. You're dead… I'm dead…and he becomes a big hero again and lives happily ever after.”

“Why hasn't he killed us already then?”

“Every detail has to match his story. He planned it for tomorrow morning. If he kills us tonight…”

“…the time of death wouldn't make sense,” said Anne.

“That's all I know.”

“So that's why you made that dumb attempt to kill me when he dumped me out of that bag?”

“Takin' you out would screw things up for him…buy me a little time maybe.”

“Perhaps I can pay you back sometime.”

“You'll need a plan first.”

“I've got a plan,” she said. Anne spoke with an air of confidence that surprised Cutter. His surprise drifted into scepticism. Then he laughed at her.

Anne pulled the bobby pins from her hair. She pushed the fingers of her free hand through her long hair as if she were modelling and shook it out. “Much better,” she said and smiled.

68.

“You've had a very busy week.”

“The worst one ever. Madame Desjardins is going to kill me when she finds out.”

“As far as we can determine, you weren't at fault. You did what you could under the circumstances. It'll all be in my report,” said Constable Foley.

“There's going to be a report?” Jacqui was surprised. “Ohmygod, is it going to be in the papers?”

“That's unlikely to happen.” Constable Foley spoke with an officious certainty, but Jacqui wasn't convinced.

Constable Wilkins, his partner, returned from a walk-through of the house and property and stood next to Foley and Jacqui.

“No drunks left inside or out,” said Wilkins, “and there's more mess than damage. You're a lucky lady,” he said. He sounded very satisfied with himself.

“Yeah…lucky,” she echoed. The faces of her disappointed mother and a dismayed art teacher haunted her imagination, and Rada's humiliation and her father's frustration intertwined with them until the unmusical tinkle of glass coaxed her attention back to reality.

Bobby Fogarty swept the fragments into a dustpan. The glass in his framed present had shattered, but the picture was not damaged. He picked it from the floor and examined it carefully.

“I can fix that,” said Jacqui. “Don't worry.”

“The birthday boy?” asked Wilkins. Bobby nodded. “Right then. I guess we're done here. If any latecomers show up, call.”

“Thank you.”

Constables Foley and Wilkins headed for the door. Foley turned and started to speak, but stopped. He nodded encouragingly toward Jacqui. Jacqui waved a goodbye.

The door closed behind them, and Jacqui looked at her watch.

“I have an hour, maybe a bit more, before she arrives.”

Jacqui surveyed the living room. Disgust with the look of the place and discouragement with the task ahead overwhelmed her. Tears dampened her eyes. She blinked repeatedly to clear her vision and dispel any evidence of what she was feeling.

“Why don't you head home? It's getting late, and I've got some work to do around here,” she said purposefully to Bobby. She turned away, bent down, and scrubbed at a spot on the floor with her fingernail. She wet it and wiped it. The mark left by the cigarette butt disappeared. Only a small smudge remained.

“Can I help?” said Bobby.

“If you want?” Her words were hesitant, but her heart brightened. She waited a second or two for some qualifier from Bobby, but none came. “Okay then. Open all the windows. Let's get some fresh air in here. Then gather up the bottles and garbage. I'll grab the mop and pail.”

Jacob Dawson hunched over his workstation in the periodical section of the Robertson Library at the University. Two open books spread across his desk. The storage ledge above his carrel held three bound volumes:
Youth and Society
,
Symbolic Interaction
, and
Discourse and Society
. The library would close in an hour, and he rushed to add notes onto a lined pad and highlight passages in a stack of photocopies.

“You still on?” she asked. Sami Smith's perfume somehow had swept ahead of her person. It quickened Jacob's attention before she spoke. Jacob seemed startled by her sudden interest but quite pleased with her intervention. She was very attractive and smart. She was also charming. And her eyes burned with a hint of mischievousness, a trait accented by the bright pink streak in a forelock of her blonde hair. Her avant-garde airs fascinated him.

Jacob leaned back in his seat and stretched. Three straight hours of study under his belt had wearied him, and the major group presentation tomorrow meant a long night ahead. Still there was much to do. Tonight's study session weighed just as much on his mind as it did on Sami's. Their group results would count significantly on mid-semester grades.

“I'll be there. The others on board, too?”

Sami smiled brightly and shook her head in affirmation. Jacob secretly marvelled at the perfect cherubic shape of her lips and the stunning whiteness of her teeth.

“You?”

“Absolutely.”

Jacob returned to his studies and note-taking, but he was slowly losing his initiative and his will to continue in earnest. Part of the fault was his weariness; part was Sami.

Sami was a delight. She brightened his otherwise solitary life. He was drawn to her, but she knew almost nothing of his past, and experience had convinced Jacob that her knowing about it would put an end to dreams he had envisioned with her. But the truth of his past was only one stumbling block, he thought. Real and present demons circled like birds of prey…and they were growing hungry and anxious and impatient to be satisfied.

Jacob's pencil point snapped. He stared into the imitation wood veneer of the carrel in front of him and saw his future and his past—a small box, a cage, a storage locker, a prison cell, but perhaps that small world was simply his fate, its tentacles reaching out from every corner. There was no escaping—fate, destiny—whatever one might call it. At one time he had accepted Christ and the hope of redemption, but he could not dispel his long-held disposition that all of time had already been written. The future had already been scripted. The play had begun. Everything else—plans, expectations, dreams—was sham and illusion. A cruel joke.

Twenty minutes elapsed. His attention suspended. His mind drifted. He closed his books and gathered his notes. Then his cell phone buzzed. It was a text message: “
need u now.
”

Anne rotated around to the foot of the bed. She still believed that Cutter would try to kill her, but she didn't think his arms could stretch far enough to reach her where she was now. Nonetheless she preferred caution, and, from her new position, she could keep him in her line of sight. She could also prevent him from observing her too closely. She did have a plan, and it involved picking the lock on her cuffs.

In theory it was simple; in practice, a little more challenging. She had done it before—a few times. But that was when Anne was fifteen. Her tutorial, though, had begun when she was eight or nine.

At that time, her uncle, Billy Darby, was a cop with the Ottawa police. For a while he lived in the same house as Anne, her mother, and her father. Often, when Anne's parents went out for an evening with friends, they enlisted Billy to babysit. Anne loved it when he watched over her. He played games and did card tricks. He even showed her how the tricks worked and, with his help, she would practise his sleights of hand to astonish her school chums.

Sometimes after Uncle Billy arrived home, he would let her play with his night stick, a collapsible baton. There was something wondrous about the baton. A flick of the wrist would instantly deploy the telescoping parts from the length of a ruler to almost the length of a yard stick. She felt powerful with it and waved it about as if it were a Star Wars lightsaber. Then, after having vanquished a dark-side stormtrooper or two, she would tap the baton's tip on the hardwood floor, and magically the whole thing would collapse into its short, stubby handle. Again and again Anne did this, and again and again Uncle Bill would rock with laughter.

His handcuffs had been among her temporary playthings at those times, too. But they had been more of an intellectual puzzle than an exciting implement of action. Of course, when Uncle Billy snapped that cuff around her wrist, she was so small at the time that she could slip right out no matter how tightly they encircled her hand, and she giggled with delight each time she set herself free. In turnabout, she handcuffed her uncle, and he made a show of struggling with them until he retrieved his spare key and made his escape.

Something about the mechanics of the handcuffs had fascinated Anne. It rivalled some Lego sets in complexity with its keyed mechanisms, spring releases, and ratchets, the smoothness of its movements, and the decisive sounds of its engagement. It was shiny and solid and substantial and, because it was one of Uncle Billy's tools, it seemed important and grown-up.

Five years later, Anne's adventures with batons and handcuffs were remembered only as a bit of childhood fun and distraction. Play-acting the Jedi knight had lost its zest, but Anne still treasured the spirit that had empowered her. As a teenager, Anne played that spirit out more practically on the high school soccer field. So, one evening when Uncle Billy snapped handcuffs on himself in her living room after dinner, handed her the key, and asked her what would Princess Leia do if she were in this predicament, she was divided between laughing him off for his presumption that she was still a little kid or accepting his foolish challenge simply to humour him. Anne chose the latter, but she couldn't determine whether she had done so because of kindness or a habitual respect for her seniors.

Anne played along, but she did so reluctantly. After all, Uncle Billy was getting old, she thought. His hair was greying on the sides and thinning like a parched field on top. He must be at least forty, forty-five, she guessed. So she made an effort to be kind. She suggested three or four thoughtful answers—a few of them quite inspired, she believed. Then she became tired of the game and proffered half a dozen wild guesses, none of which satisfied Uncle Billy's quest for…
For what?
she wondered. It was all becoming rather silly and tedious.

“What's the trick?” she asked.

“The trick is the key,” he answered in his best Alec Guinness voice. Anne's failure to guess right, as well as Uncle Billy's faux mystique and, in her mind, unrelenting reply, frustrated Anne, and she threw up her hands.

“The trick is that you can't get out of a cop's handcuffs,” she said. “That's no trick. That's just common sense.”

“You must use the Force, Luke,” said Billy continuing his Obi-Wan Kenobi impersonation and pointing his forefinger toward the side of his head. Uncle Billy wasn't suppressing a laugh as he sometimes did before he delivered the punchline to a joke, and fifteen-year-old Anne staunched the impulse to call his bluff a second time. Perhaps his clue is a real clue, she thought.

“Reproduce the key?” she said, half-expecting his great guffaw to upstage her. Instead, he smiled. But it wasn't amusement. It was satisfaction.

“Might make a cop out of you yet…if you don't make the cut for the World Cup team.”

“And the answer is…?” Anne's short reply was a confusion of frustration, sarcasm, and ill-defined pleasure.

“Let me show you,” he said. “Give me one of your bobby pins.”

Billy took the key from his pocket. He put the bobby pin next to it on the table top. You turn this pin into this key,” he said. “You need to recreate the tip, the shank and the pick lever to do it.”

“Don't you need tools?”

“They're all in your hand…and head. You know what the key looks like. You make the tip first.” Billy stuck the end of the bobby pin into the keyway of the handcuff and bent it back. He withdrew it and showed Anne an eighth-inch crook in it. Billy wiggled it back into the keyway at an angle and bent a second short crook in the opposite direction. He withdrew it and showed Anne.

“The rest of the bobby pin is a lever,” he said and inserted the homemade lock pick into the keyway. “Be careful to turn it slowly but firmly. You'll feel pressure coming off the ratchets. There. See?” he said, and the handcuff opened and fell from his wrist.

Anne had never forgotten Uncle Billy's lesson, and, in the flutter of kerosene-fuelled light in her cabin prison, she worked her bobby pin into the keyway of her handcuff, hoping that it was stiff enough to take the load of releasing the spring.

It was.