The Taken

Sunderland, but after a five-minute wait, a young woman with short black hair came out and offered her hand. “I’m Becca Portman,” she said. “Mr. Sunderland isn’t available.” She looked back and forth between the two officers, smiling mildly.

“Did he see me standing in his lobby?” asked Hazel.

“Actually, no. He’s in Atlanta this week for a conference.” Hazel mentally added Sunderland to her list of the unaccounted-for. After all, it was in his newspaper that the short story was appearing. And he was no fan of hers. Although it was hard to credit how what was happening had anything to do with her. Portman leaned toward her and said, with a hint of embarrassment, “‘Reupping Small Market Ads: Supersize Your Customers, Supersize Your Revenues.’ It’s sorta gay, I know, but this is a business.”

“And what are you?”

“I’m the managing editor. And for three issues, I’m the interim publisher, which is, honestly, so…”

“Awesome,” said Hazel.

“Yeah.”

Wingate took her hand and shook it. “It’s good to meet you. Do you have an office?”

She did; it was Sunderland ’s office. She led them to it and closed the door. There were pictures of Sunderland on the walls with celebrities who wouldn’t be recognized twenty kilometres south of Port Dundas. Wingate put a picture of the severed hand on her desk. Portman covered her mouth with her hand. “Wow,” she said. “That’s kinda gross, isn’t it?”

“Does Gord Sunderland know it’s my birthday tomorrow?”

Becca Portman narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think so. But happy birthday?”

“Someone sent that to me in a wrapped box.” She took her notebook out of her hip pocket and removed a Polaroid picture. She held it out to Portman. “And this was found in Gannon Lake on Friday. You’re running a story that features a body in a lake.” Portman was looking at the picture. “Can you get your boss on the phone?”

“I’m sorry, but what does that nasty hand have to do with this mannequin? Or the story?”

“There are aspects of our investigation we can’t discuss right now, Miss Portman,” said Wingate. “But you can trust me: it’s connected.”

“So,” said Hazel, “your boss?”

“All I have is a hotel number, I’m afraid.” She handed back the picture. “Mr. Sunderland told me to hold down the ship.”

“The ship?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Miss Portman,” said Wingate, “can you show us the next chapter of the story you’re running?”

“No,” she said, blithely. “I can’t.”

“We’re not rabid fans,” said Hazel, “who can’t wait until tomorrow morning. We’re police officers.”

“The problem is, we don’t have it yet,” said Portman.

“Don’t you have to go to press?” asked Wingate.

“Tonight.” She looked at her watch, as if the evening could creep up on her without her noticing. “Mr. Eldwin’s giving us the chapters one at a time now.”

“So when are you expecting him?”

“Expecting him?”

“You have a poor grip of English for a woman who works at a newspaper,” said Hazel. “Expecting, anticipating, looking forward to his presence.”

She looked at Hazel queerly. “I’m not expecting him,” she said. “He sends the chapters in by email.”

“Fucking technology is going to be the death of policework, I tell you.”

Wingate brought her attention around to him again. “From where, Miss Portman? Where is he emailing from?”

“Um? His computer?”

Wingate looked at Hazel. Hazel said, “Can we see the last email he sent?”

Now she was happy to help. “Sure,” she said, and she leaned over Sunderland ’s desk and brought up her email, turning the screen to them. Hazel went behind the desk, gently pushing Portman out of the way, and sat in Sunderland ’s chair, turning the screen back to herself. There were dozens of emails still in the inbox. Two were from Colin Eldwin, and she opened the one that was from this past Saturday afternoon. It said, simply, “Hi Becca, I’ve had a couple of new ideas for the story, so toss what I sent on Thursday, okay? Here’s chapter three for Monday – I’ll get this Thursday’s to you asap. Thanks! CE.”

She opened the first email. It was dated Thursday, May 12. “First two chapters,” it read. “More in a week. CE.” Both emails were sent from Eldwin’s email address, [email protected].

“Where are the original third and fourth chapters Eldwin sent?”

“I trashed them. Always respect the writer’s wishes.” Hazel thought, Editorial Relationships, second year.

“Did you read them?”

“Yeah.”

“And why do you think he wanted to rewrite them?”

Portman shrugged, an all-encompassing shrug of total incompetence. “I guess he wasn’t happy.”

“What were they about? What happened in them?”

“Oh gosh,” she said, searching the ceiling. “Let’s see, they drag that poor girl into the boat and Gus throws up some more, and then they take it to the police and it turns out it’s some girl that’s been missing for months and the police, like, they hold Dale and Gus, but they’re innocent and they let them go. But Dale has a bad feeling.”

“A bad feeling. What kind of bad feeling?”

“I think that’s where the fourth chapter ended. I can understand why Mr. Eldwin wanted to revise. It was a little too on-the-nose for a mystery story. I like what he’s doing with it now.”

“Do you?”

“Oh yeah, it’s goosebump stuff, don’t you think?”

Hazel stared at the girl for a moment, lost for anything to say, and then she returned her attention to the computer screen and scrolled down the inbox. There were emails from Sunderland, from other columnists and writers, from advertisers. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. She went back to the Eldwin emails. “I want copies of these,” she said. “You have a computer person here?”

“I’m a computer person,” said Portman. “What do you need?”

“I just told you what I need.”

Wingate stepped forward. “If you could just make us printouts of the emails, with full headers, that’d probably do for now.”

“Hey, no problem,” said Portman, and she flounced behind the desk. Hazel got up and stood in the window, trying to control the urge to smack the girl. Portman disconnected the computer from a scanner, then unplugged the scanner and plugged in a printer, connected the USB cable from the printer to the computer and tried to print the two emails. “Whoops,” she said, “wrong cable. Hold on.” She fiddled for a couple of minutes, failed to find the problem, smiled emptily at Wingate, and called in an associate, a gangly guy with a mass of uncombed hair and a worried expression on his face. He fiddled with the cables for a couple of minutes before plugging the printer into the right sockets.

“Okay Mizz Portman, that should, that should do ’er.” He almost hit the doorframe on the way out.

“He has a crush on me,” said Portman.

“Well, you’re adorable, aren’t you?” said Hazel.

“Thank you,” she said.

“And you run a tight fort,” she added.

“Well, there you go,” said Portman, handing Wingate the printouts. “Let me know if I can be of any more help.”

She hop-skipped to the office door and opened it for them, relieved to have the visit over and done with. Hazel