“Oh, so, like you’re drawing the line at the frikking parkway?”
“Watch your mouth. Stay straight.” He honked going through the light at Castle Frank and a gaggle of teenagers crossing the road from Rosedale Heights Secondary School flew apart.
“I hope one of them filmed that,” the kid said.
“Keep your eyes forward,” she said as they crossed the Bloor Street Viaduct. She’d flagged this car seven minutes ago. The kid could drive. “Turn right at Broadview.”
He did and she directed him to Martha’s apartment building, shouting to him to stop when he got there. When she threw the door open, he said, “Hey, you want me to wait?”
“No, I want you to go home. Slowly. And don’t break the law again.”
“Don’t forget your damn sweater,” the kid said, holding the evidence bag out to her. She took it and slammed the door and ran toward the building. The drops of May rain still held a hint of shivery cold in them, or maybe it was the anxiety driving all the blood to her extremities as she traced her finger on the callboard down to the Ps. She buzzed Martha’s apartment and then waited with her heart slamming itself against her ribs. There was no answer and she buzzed again, her breath shallow in her chest, the knuckle of her index finger turning bright yellow against the button, and she unsnapped her holster. She was going to have to blow the electro-maglock open. “Damn it, answer your door, Baby, just answer it!”
She stepped back, levelled the gun at the door, and took the safety off. “Christ,” she muttered as she began to squeeze the trigger. Behind the door, in the dim light of the lobby, she saw one of the elevators open and she raised the muzzle to the widening space. Then she saw it was Martha. Alone. Hazel hurriedly put the weapon back and tried to put a smile on her face. Martha opened the door with a bemused expression, an expression that told Hazel nothing untoward had happened. “Where the hell did you go?” she asked.
“I’m an idiot,” her mother said breathlessly. “I forgot which apartment was yours.”
“I’ve been up and down twice. God, you’re white as a sheet.”
“I ran down the stairs.”
“What? Why?”
“The elevator -” she said, but she couldn’t complete the sentence and had to lean forward and grip the steel frame of the door.
“Well, don’t stand there in the drizzle, then, come in. I’ll put on some coffee.”
Hazel caught her breath and straightened up. “No,” she said.
“I want you to wait here.”
Martha jerked her head back, her mouth creased in perfect confusion. “What?”
“No, you’re right. Come up with me.”
She led her daughter to the elevators, Martha behind her saying, “What the hell is going on?” but she didn’t answer her, just waited for the doors to open again, ready to tear the gun out of its holster. The elevator was empty and she ushered Martha in.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I think someone might be stalking you.”
“What? Nobody is remotely that interested in me.”
The doors opened on the fourth floor and Hazel stepped out. “Wait in the hallway,” she said, but Martha strode around her mother, huffing, and unlocked her apartment door before Hazel could stop her. She had no choice: she rushed forward with the gun drawn and shoved past Martha in the doorway into the living room, spinning with her head tilted and the gun in front of her. She tossed the bag onto the coffee table and stood still, facing the hallway that connected the bedroom and the bathroom. The drawn gun had silenced Martha, and Hazel gestured her into the apartment and down onto the couch. She crept into the hallway and tried to sense movement in her periphery, but both ends of the hall seemed to be empty. She held a palm out behind her to warn Martha to stay where she was and then she moved silently toward the bedroom. It was a mess – anyone casing the apartment would think it had already been tossed – and Hazel could see there was no one in view in the room. She knew Martha’s closet was so packed with crap that no one could hide in it, but she went to check it anyway. She could hear banker’s boxes groaning against the door and she only opened it halfway before closing it again. The bedroom was clear. She retreated down the hallway and heard “There’s no one in the bathroom either,” and she spun, her breath catching, and Martha was walking toward her. She put her index finger lightly on the gun barrel and pushed it down. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on here?”
“I got a call.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It was from downstairs. That wasn’t me in the speaker-phone before. Someone recorded my voice.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“Someone was
“They’re not here now, though,” said Hazel. “It’s okay now.”
Martha shook her head angrily and walked back into the living room. She sat heavily back onto the sofa. “Do you mean to say you keep track of my every move, imagining all kinds of harm coming to me,
Hazel holstered the gun and sat across from Martha, unsure what to tell her. “It’s a live investigation, Martha. I had no idea it was even a possibility. Your dad’s name is on the lease, your number is unlisted. We did all that for a reason.”
“What was that reason again, Mum? Do you think all cops’ kids live in witness protection or something?”
“It was just a thought for your safety.”
“You would never have felt the need to do the same thing for Emilia.”
She’d come here worried for her daughter’s life and now, without so much as the wind changing, they were in familiar territory where Hazel couldn’t save Martha from anything. “I’m sorry,” she said now. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“So now what?”
“I think maybe you should come back home until all this is wrapped up.”
“No fucking way.”
“Martha -”
“I’m thirty-three,” her daughter said. “This is my home. How about I stay here and if it sounds like you’re downstairs, I’ll just pretend I’m not home.”
“Please, Martha.”
Her daughter said nothing. After a moment, the intercom buzzed and Martha blinked twice without moving. “You want to answer that or just shoot it?”
Hazel spiked the call button on the intercom. “Who is it?”
“I’m here,” said Wingate.
“We’ll be down in a minute,” she said. She disconnected and took Martha’s coat off the hook by the door. “I know how pissed off you are at me right now, but I have to insist. I don’t know if you’re safe here.”
After a moment, Martha pushed herself up from the couch, exactly the same gesture Hazel could see in her mind’s eye when, as a teenager, Martha had finally acquiesced to a higher power and reluctantly taken direction. She came to her mother and took the coat from her, lifted it into the air, and put it back on its hook.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said.
“Do you want to know who was here, Martha?” she said, finally furious. “He was a cop once, and right now he’s got a man tied to a chair in a basement somewhere. Although not all of the man. He cut his hand off and sent it to me in a box and then he sliced the man’s ears from the sides of his head and painted a wall with them.” Martha was blanching. “So it’s your choice: put on that fucking coat and come downstairs with me now, or keep your apartment locked up tight and hope he doesn’t know how to kick in a door.”
She told Wingate to take his time going down Broadview, she’d had enough fast living for one day. Martha sat in the back seat, looking out the window in silence.
Wingate spoke quietly. “What the hell happened back there?”
“Goodman happened. But I had her…”
“Who?”
