I called Gregory’s cell, even though he hated it when I bothered him at work. He was in New York for meetings.
“You realize this means there could be other mistakes in the file. Their blood type is pretty important, isn’t it? If they got that wrong, maybe they were wrong about other things.”
Gregory quickly moved to end the call. I should have known long ago that the information wasn’t reliable, he told me angrily.
“What if they have AIDS?”
“Emma, I’m busy. Make an appointment with the doctor if you’re so worried.”
So that’s what I did as soon as I hung up.
“She said no.”
“How much did you offer her?”
“I didn’t have time to talk about money. She got mad and said she wasn’t a whore.”
We’re in the dog park, as agreed. We’d caught Mathilde after school to suggest a price to fuck us, and we’d been stunned by her refusal. We thought the only problem might be the cost. Since we bought the climbing material, our funds have been scant. But we’re managing. We have ideas.
We say nothing more, but stretch out together and stare into the void. We don’t notice the boy with the poodle playing a few metres away. He sees us right away and directs his dog toward us.
He sits down without asking, then throws a ball down the hill to get rid of the dog.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re trying to sleep with a girl.”
“Oh. Where’s the girl?”
“That’s the problem. She doesn’t want to.”
He sits, thinking for an instant. We pay him no attention. It annoys us that he’s there.
“My dog tries to mount other bitches too. A lot of times they don’t let him.”
We turn toward him. The dog has returned with his toy, breathless, tongue hanging out.
“Who’s the girl?” he asks.
“You don’t know her. She’s in high school.”
“I know some high school girls,” he insists. “I have an older brother. What’s her name?”
“You have a brother?”
“Yes. What’s her name?”
“Mathilde.”
“Don’t know her.”
It’s hard to believe he has a brother; we’ve never seen them together.
“Does your brother sleep with girls?”
“I don’t know. We don’t really talk—at least not about that.”
“How can you not know? You don’t know what your brother does?”
“Well, no. We don’t really get along. He never lets me go into his room and doesn’t want to play with me.”
“You don’t do anything together?”
“Sometimes we watch movies.”
We don’t really understand what he’s talking about. He has a brother, but he doesn’t know anything about him? We’re starting to think he’s lying to make himself more interesting.
“If you have a brother, prove it.”
“Okay, I’ll introduce you. Where do you live?”
“The red door on Grace Street.”
“Okay.” He skips away with his dog.
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know. He’s weird.”
“Are we going to follow him?”
We get right up and start following the boy, keeping a safe distance so he doesn’t see us. From Harbord Street, he starts up Shaw. The street is lined with trees, so it’s easy to hide. We give him a head start, since we can see him from far away; the street goes straight all the way to Bloor. He soon enters a fenced garden on the right. We wait a moment, then go up the street to his house. The house is semi-detached, like the one on Grace Street, but looks darker because a big tree is growing in front of the main window. There are flowers growing in front of the house and there’s a swing on the porch with a pillow that has DREAM written on it. Upstairs, there are two gabled windows. One of them might be his room.
The sound of sirens comes from further down Harbord Street. A number of fire trucks go by, followed by ambulances. We’re afraid the noise might make the boy or his parents come out and we quickly walk away.
I stared at the screen, nervously wringing my hands. It was on every station: they’d found the remains of little Faye. The Toronto police chief and an RCMP inspector were giving a press conference. Images filmed live at the investigation site told the story.
A city worker had made the discovery while inspecting the silo, which was slated for imminent destruction. Her body had been right under our noses for all these years. The vacant lot was unrecognizable on television. The fire department had opened up a big part of the surface during the search, transforming it into a giant crater.
The silo had a double floor, explained a reporter in high heels. Across from her, the worker stammered, very shaken. The basement was about six feet high. The centre of the reservoir ended in a large funnel, originally used to extract grain.
The employee had been expected to provide a brief
report, mainly as an administrative formality, since the fate of the tower, declared dangerous by the city council, was unequivocal. When he’d opened the trap, the stench of
decomposing flesh and ammonia had been unbearable.
In the basement cabin, the dry air had mummified the body. A number of common household tools—hammer, pruning shears, hunting knife—had been used to mutilate the child.
The camera zoomed in on the worker’s red face.
The next day, I had to bring the boys to the doctor for a checkup. I told myself I would talk to the doctor about the horrible news. Perhaps he could counsel me on how best to tell them that the body of their childhood classmate had been discovered. I really didn’t know how to tell them she’d been murdered.
Our family doctor hadn’t seen the boys in many years and found them much changed. They had filled right out.
“They look to be in good shape,” he said conclusively.
I mentioned the
