Lost Girls

chapter 32

Why do people who do certain things for a living all look the same? Is it the looks that determine the job, or does the job conform the looks? I'm thinking about tax lawyers (nearly always bespectacled, narrow shouldered, easily startled), undertakers and bureaucrats (both loose skinned and hound faced, the muscles responsible for smiling withered from lack of exercise), but mostly police detectives, the most aesthetically homogeneous profession of them all. I'm looking at Bill Butcher, chief investigating officer for Murdoch Region, the man in charge of marshaling the police's evidence and the Crown's lead witness. Sitting up in the stand, responding to Goodwin's questions. A man who could be nothing other than a cop.

''We found the brown pants about a third of the way down inside the laundry hamper in the hall,'' Bill Butcher is saying, his voice disciplined into deep consistency. No emphasis, no cracks, all business. That's what he's working for up there, that's what he likes to hear. A moderately intelligent man who enjoys power and the appearance of responsibility, but who enjoys even more a starchy lunch followed by deep-fried dough and coffee. A man who's seen enough to know that life is a rough ride and that people are as often desperate and mean as not, but who in the end is more vain than philosophical, the signs of his flagging youth (breasts growing out over a widening gut, liver spots, a firing-range score that is the source of jokes back at headquarters) keeping him up at night far longer than the violence and cruelty that plagues a fallen world.

''There was no indication that there had been an attempt to hide them,'' he's saying. ''The muddy shoes were next to the door alongside a pair of slippers and rubber boots.''

I make notes. At least my hand makes notes, twitching across the page, but I'm unaware of the words it authors. When I raise my eyes from where they've been resting the clerk, the cop, and the judge are all looking my way.

''Mr. Crane?'' Justice Goldfarb's voice.

''Yes, Your Honor?''

''Are you with us?''

''Yes. Sorry. With you now. My apologies to the court.''

''It's your turn, Mr. Crane.''

''Of course. Begging the court's indulgence. Just collecting my notes.''

It's the afternoon of the second day of the cop's testimony. How much longer was I expecting him to go on? I haven't even started and I'm fucking up.

''Detective Butcher, I'd like to begin with your search of the place where Mr. Tripp allegedly parked at Lake St. Christopher on the day in question,'' I hear myself saying, watch Butcher's head go down to his own notes and his mouth emit an answer. It appears that I'm doing something.

Maybe it's in the eyes. In cops it dulls their brightness, turns them into dark buttons. School and hospital administrators tend to have eyes like these, but with lower lids. The eyes of people whose jobs involve processing paper without vested interest in their content.

''So would you say that you've had less experience investigating homicide cases than the majority of your colleagues in Toronto?''

Time has passed since the crime-scene questions, and the counsel's lectern where I stand is thick with paper on which I've recorded answers and prepared new questions, but I can't recall how I've brought us here.

''I can tell you I've dealt with some cases up here that detectives down in the city wouldn't know what to do with,'' the cop is saying. From behind me a man's throat releases a vulgar laugh.

What did the peeler's voice on the phone say? I know what you like.

''Objection!'' Goodwin is calling from his chair.

Objection? Objection to what?

''Fine, fine. I'll rephrase the question, Your Honor,'' I say, and then go on and say something else.

The cop's eyes are unchanging, but he lowers them to his notes less and less. He must be holding up well. Looking down at the notes is a classic indication of flailing, an effort to buy some time. This guy looks like he's got all the time in the world.

So cold.

''You found mud on the pants and shoes--but let's make this clear--no blood on anything but the car's backseat?''

The nerdy kid, Laird Johanssen. I keep a file on all the hot girls. Isn't that what he'd said?

''I'm not trying to draw any conclusions from the underwear photos, Mr. Crane. That's the jury's job, as I understand it.''

Coming in through the nursery window, taking the breath from a baby's lungs.

''Come on now, Detective. Would you describe the accused as a man with the physical strength to do what the Crown wants the jury to believe he did?''

''Could you repeat the question?''

Christ knows you very well, Mr. Crane.

''You're a father, aren't you, Detective Butcher? Couldn't you understand another man missing his little girl so much he would reach for whatever reminders, whatever small comforts, he could find?''

''No, sir. But I can't speak for anyone but myself.''

The Lady never slept and I had to.

''I think I've already answered that, Mr. Crane.''

''No further questions, Your Honor.''

An inch of Scotch tape at the top and bottom is all it takes to hold her there. I've found a square of uncovered wallpaper in the V of sandy light above the bedside lamp and it fits perfectly. A piece of crinkled gloss standing out from the melt of typeset columns, an island of up-close definition in a sea of letters and dots.

I guess at what her name was. I think of naming her myself. Stand close, hands against the wall for balance. Eyes searching, pushing in.

I commit the lines of her face to memory.

chapter 33

Bishop's Hospital lies at the end of a gravel side road off the main highway heading north. Only a small wooden sign marks the place to turn. This would be odd for a regular hospital, where people rush in the middle of the night to have babies delivered, limbs set in plaster, or hearts pounded back to life. Insufficient for a place requiring a sign official looking and prominent enough to be caught in the panicked swing of headlights. But not so odd for an asylum, halfway house, old-age home, or whatever combination this place is.

Make the turn and bump along the S-shaped entryway, dripping boughs bent low enough to scrape across the Lincoln's windshield before lifting away to expose the hospital at the end. The building is a converted brick house, better suited to its present purposes than as the dwelling place of the single family for whom it must have been originally built. Out front is a wide circle for cars to park with a long-abandoned flower bed in its center, and everywhere else the underbrush has been allowed to creep up against the walls to cover most of the first-floor windows. In fact every effort appears to have been made (or not made) to let the place fall into an advanced state of overgrowth and disrepair. The easier then to be hidden and, with luck, forgotten.

I approach the single reception desk tucked into the curve of the staircase where a nurse sits with head lowered over papers. Behind her hangs a full-size portrait of a twenty-something Queen Elizabeth sitting on her throne, her youth weighed down by scepter, crown, and robes. I'm expecting crosses or a religious mural somewhere, somebody haloed or bleeding, but aside from Her Majesty there's nothing but bare walls.

Clear my throat to pull the nurse's attention away from what turns out to be not papers but the romance novel she's buried her head in. When she raises her eyes to mine she exposes a face much older that I would have