The Night Bell (20 page)

“No,” she said, and Hazel heard the sound of her throat working. “I think I’d better stay here a few more hours.” The girl sat up partway and blew her nose. “I can’t believe he’s dead,” she said. “He was gonna take me to see the horse circus.”

“Get some rest.”

She closed the outer door and locked it. She walked back and put the keys into the palm of Scott’s outstretched hand. “I’ll have tea.” He was rugged-looking, about fifty-five, with a barrel chest, and his bushy beard was starting to streak grey under his mouth. “Superintendent Scott, are you aware that one of our officers has been abducted?”

“I am. I’m sorry. I understand there isn’t much progress just yet.”

“It’s hard to carry on an investigation when the crime scene is locked down by another police force.”

He was in the little galley, busy swirling hot water into teacups. The cups – Royal Doulton, she was sure – looked silly and small in his paws and he wore a look of engrossed
concentration. He swirled water in the teapot, too. “It feels sometimes like the world is coming apart at the seams. A cup of tea helps.”

“I’m not sure Sergeant Renald would agree with that sentiment,” she said. “Are you doing
anything
in those fields?”

“There’s not much in the way of shovelling going on right now,” Scott said. “Our instructions are to keep the site secure. When they saw you lurking around, we were told to lock down every corner. Which we have carried out with ruthless efficiency.” He smiled.

“You knew it was me?”

“I think it only took one phone call.”

She wondered how good a policeman he was. He had a soothing manner that was also charming, in a practised way. She’d missed a few words; he was still talking: “… would have seen him by now. We’ve inspected every dwelling in the development. And we’ve checked every ID. Your sergeant is not on these grounds.”

“How do you know he’s not under them?”

“If he is, then I’m afraid the investigation into his death would be ancillary to our current command.” He held both cups aloft in their saucers and splashed a bit of tea into them. Hazel reached out to take one.

“Which is what, specifically?” she asked.

“Which is to collect evidence.”

“Well, we have similar aims.”

“But at cross-purposes.”

“Why is the RCMP taking over this investigation?”

“We have not taken anything over, Detective Inspector. We’re on our own investigation.” The door to the command centre opened and a young woman in uniform entered. She saw Micallef and Scott sitting there together and she apologized, and left.

“You’re not investigating the unrecorded murders of children from fifty years ago? You’re here for another reason?”

“I wish I could tell you more.”

She put her teacup down on its saucer and pushed it away. “I wish you could, too,” she said. “You’re impeding
my
investigation. You’re not even keeping it alive. I’d like to know what for.”

“I would like to tell you. But I can’t.”

“God. I’ve always found you guys inscrutable, you know?”

“Us
guys
? We are also women and dogs and horses.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re just pretending in those shiny uniforms of yours.”

He looked at her steadily for a long count. It made her feel she shouldn’t blink. “I assure you,” he said, “we are not pretending.”

She rose and pushed her chair away. Its feet bumped awkwardly backward over the red, tight-pile carpet. She reached out, a little stiffly she thought, to shake his hand.

“It’s true you have to watch out for the horses,” he said
to her at the exit. “They are both inscrutable and mischievous. Come back if you like. Command is lonesome.”

James Wingate spent his Thursday in the archives and he was home by six with copies of complete personnel lists for both boys’ homes between 1951 and 1960. He faxed them to Hazel, and once they’d both had their suppers, they sat on the phone together and went over the data.

“Get this. One of the physical education teachers at Charterhouse was named Greer Knockknock,” he said.

“Do you see any personnel who shuttled back and forth? Listed at both institutions at the same time maybe?”

“I haven’t looked.” They both heard papers being shuffled. “Tell me,” said Wingate. “How much of this do you think went on? Crimes like this, ones we only discover by accident?”

“You shudder to think what’s under the ground anywhere. I had an aunt who lived in Tunisia. She had six mummies in her garden.”

“I have some contacts in Renfrew now … I’m dying to ask them to sniff around the local history. But if they’ve got anything in their fields like we do in ours, they’d be smart to keep a lid on it or maybe they’ll get their case snatched too.”

“I don’t think our case has been snatched,” Hazel said. “I met the guy in charge down there. Martin Scott. He was pretty straightforward about the situation. His position
was to be very kind and polite and also immovable. But he did tell me their case is not the missing kids.”

“The Fremonts then?”

“He wouldn’t confirm it. But why would the RCMP be interested in people like the Fremonts?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Bit players. Those homes went for under a quarter of a million, most of them. What kind of criminal enterprise was Oscar Fremont in that paid off this poorly, but the RCMP would investigate?” Wingate arched his eyebrows. “The Fremonts – and everyone else on that cursed bit of land – are sideshows to a sideshow, and the RCMP is doing something altogether unconnected. Or connected in a way that’s not obvious. Scott acted as if the discovery of the bones created an opportunity for them.”

“Let’s keep going,” he said.

She heard him turning pages but she had no idea where he was in the document when he started talking. “There’s some commonality, besides oversight, between the two homes in the time frame we’re looking at. A couple of administrators, a bookkeeper, some medical and nursing staff. I think there might have been a provincial circuit for the docs because these records show their salaries were paid separately by inhibition. Institution. Very small amounts, though. In 1958, this one – Harald Groet – was paid two hundred and seventy-five dollars by Charterhouse and three hundred by Dublin Home. That’s not a lot for a doctor even in 1958,
don’t you think?” She heard him tapping on a keypad. “Three hundred bucks in 1958 is like two thousand now.”

“Why does this matter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does knowing doctors’ salaries in 1958 move our case along?”

“None of them were on staff. That’s what I mean.”

“Fine. Janitorial staff. Did you find any?”

“Some.”

“Any night guards or overnight staff?”

“I can’t tell from just this.”

“OK.” She thought about it for a moment. Then she started flipping pages again. “How many doctors?”

“About a dozen.”

“Why aren’t they all together in here?”

“I can refax –”

“Never mind, I’m pulling them out. Donald Rosen. Frank Inman. Frances Kelly.”

“Which Francis?”

“The female.”

“Female doctor? Hold on, I found her,” he said. “
Frances
. Not a doctor, a nurse. And there’s a Peter Lynch. Back and forth in the region for twenty years. Frequently at both Dublin and Charterhouse. Dale Whitman –”

“Dale Whitman?” Hazel said. “I knew him. I grew up with his daughter, Gloria. We lived on the same street.”

“Do you remember him?”

“Oh yeah. I remember him well. He was what people used to call a ‘community leader.’ I think I even remember that he volunteered his time at various homes in the county.”

“He didn’t volunteer. He was paid.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong about it if he was. He raised Gloria alone. I liked him, but last time I saw him I’m sure it was fifty years ago. And I was a kid.” She leaned back in her chair to flip the stapled mass of paper back onto her desk. “I guess it would have been pretty good cover, being a community leader. With all these hockey coaches and priests, how could you be surprised by anything?”

Hazel checked with her contact in Toronto about Claude Maracle’s DNA. They’d put it on rush, but they still wouldn’t know anything until Monday at the earliest. It could make one boy real and prove the effectiveness of their investigative methods, but it still wouldn’t bring them any closer to who had put the bones there. Or to getting back to the crime scene. She began to realize that the cohort of boys who’d known Eloy Maracle was as important to find as the victims. Most of the former wards of Dublin Home would be in their sixties and seventies now; it wouldn’t be difficult to locate a couple of them. She called the archives and put Leon Cutter on it.

Hazel got up from her desk and shut the door to her office. She turned off the light. A chair wedged between
file cabinets served as her thinking spot, and right now the setting sun was picking it out in a column of light. She sat down in it and closed her eyes.

Bones are found in a field on which an expensive development has been partially built. The people who bring this to light are murdered. Why? To warn others to keep quiet? And Givens hands files over to the police that can identify who might have something to lose if the development were revealed to be a crime scene. And
he’s
murdered. And who knows what will happen to anyone else who helps?

“Jesus,” she said aloud. “Honey Eisen.” She got out her notebook, looked up Eisen’s number, and dialled it. The clock on her wall said 7:10 p.m. There was no answer. She burst from her office and crossed the pen to Ray’s. “Now I have something for you.” She tossed him his jacket. “Get mad at me later. We might have another body.”

“Let me guess: we have to go to Tournament Acres.”

“I figure if you’re in the car with me, I’m not breaking the rules.”

She told herself the look on his face had a hint of frank admiration in it.

The drive, at the speed Hazel was going, took thirty-four minutes. She had Ray call down twice on the way, but Eisen didn’t answer either time. When they got to the corner of Sam Snead and Pebble Beach, she stopped for the Mountie and rolled her window down. “I spoke to Superintendent
Scott,” she told him, not lying this time. “We’re going to drive around a bit so I can show my CO what I was talking to the super about.”

“Oh, do you want me to call him?”

“No, that’s OK. We’ll just pop in later. No need to bother him.”

“No, ma’am.”

Hazel drove north up Pebble Beach until she was out of view of the gate and parked the cruiser. She dialled Honey Eisen one more time.

“When did you talk to the superintendent?” Ray asked her.

“No answer,” Hazel said. “Earlier today. I came down. Nice guy. Not very helpful.”

“Hazel, I –”

“I didn’t enter Tournament Acres, I just went into the RCMP command vehicle. I didn’t break any rules. Let’s go.”

He glowered at her, but he got out of the car. They walked up to Eisen’s house. It was dark inside behind drawn blinds. Hazel went up the front stoop and looked in one of the side windows: she saw nothing. She knocked on the door and then rang the doorbell.

Ray stood back. She tried the door and it opened. “Aw, shit.” They both drew but kept their safeties on. She put her finger against her lips and held the door for him as they stepped into the darkened house. She clicked on her flashlight and led the way down the hall, where Mrs. Eisen
took her when she’d come to visit. The kitchen and the dining room were both empty, chairs pushed in under tables, like storeroom displays. Hazel beckoned Ray toward the bottom of the stairs.

“I hear something,” he said. He stood on the bottom step and listened with a strained look. “Can you hear that?”

“I don’t know what you’re hearing.”

“It’s a hissing sound.”

He snapped on his flashlight and began to climb the stairs. She followed behind and at the landing she heard the sound as well. It was coming from a room at the end of the hallway, behind a closed door.

“Do you smell gas?” she asked.

“No.”

“We should be careful, Ray, I don’t like this.”

“Look,” he said, shining a hard circle of light onto the hallway runner. It picked out a crimson streak. “What’s that?”

On her knees, she looked at it closely. “I don’t think it’s blood. It could be an old stain. It could be a flick of paint.”

He picked out a couple more of these maroon-coloured streaks as they crept to the door at the end of the hallway. Hazel’s chest tightened. It was definitely a hiss, as if someone was slowly letting the air out of a big balloon. Ray paused at the door and leaned in to listen. “Mrs. Eisen? Are you in there?” Hazel came up beside him and rapped the door lightly.

The hissing got louder. Was it a spraying sound? A white-noise machine? A voice choked with terror said, “Why are you here?” From within, a rough, low moan began to rise.

They both took their safeties off and stepped back from the door. “Honey? It’s Hazel Micallef. Are you in there?” Now there was the sound of a struggle and items being banged around, and it resolved into a muffled voice shouting, “Hey! Get out!
Get out of here!
”

Ray shouldered the door open, and Hazel came in behind him with her gun drawn and her light slashing across the darkened space. The beam fell on a bed alive with movement, a human form thrashing in the grip of a pale white serpent. Under the human shrieks, the hissing was louder and Hazel struggled to keep her beam on the forms wriggling in the bed. Then Ray found the light switch.

Honey Eisen was half off the bed, screeching and hollering and kicking her legs in the sheets. The serpent was a medical hose attached at one end to a breathing machine and, at the other, to Honey Eisen’s face. She righted herself and stood before them and Hazel was reminded of the monster in the Alien movies. Eisen tore the mask off. “
GOOD
fucking
SWEET
baby Jesus! What the hell are you doing in my house?”

Hazel goggled at the scene in front of her. Mrs. Eisen slept in only a nightshirt and as she shook her arms at the two of them, she flashed them her black and grey bush repeatedly. “Mrs. Eisen,” Hazel pleaded. “We’re really so sorry – it’s just we didn’t expect to find someone sleeping and there was this noise –”