The Calling (12 page)

She went up the hill past the station house and
saw a man and a woman walking hand-in-hand
past the funeral home. Her father and Delia
Chandler. They gazed calmly through Hazel's
windshield, and she thought she saw her father's
hand rise faintly in greeting. A long thin tube
trailed from under Delia's dress and skittered on the
sidewalk behind her. Hazel passed them and continued
to the top of the hill, where she turned left
and descended again into the side streets. The one
she drove down was packed on either side with
black Ford Cougars, their yellow headlights
steadily burning. She pulled over beside Delia's
house and got out, ducked under the police tape
lining the front lawn, and rang the doorbell. Delia
answered and let her into the lemon tea-scented
house. She was wearing a blue wool dress and stood
in the living room waiting in front of Hazel with
her hands folded over her belly. She passed a
teacup on a saucer to Hazel, but Hazel declined.
She asked if she could look around, and Delia
gestured with her hand in a broad sweep. The place
was spotless. She opened a couple of cupboards in
the living room and kitchen. The ones in the
living room were empty, but the one in the kitchen
had a small campfire silently burning on the floor
within. Hazel held her hands over it, but a cold
draught of air lifted off the yellow flame. She closed
the door on it. When she turned around, Delia was
standing behind her under the single light in the
kitchen ceiling, hands at her sides. Her eyes were
translucent white, like raw albumen, and the damp
cut across her throat hung loose. Hazel heard the
susurration of air from inside the gash and then
the edges of the cut began to move like a mouth.
She stared at the huge wound as it stretched and
pursed and thinned itself and the air behind it
hissed.
Shhaassahhm nuhhhh
, said the tear in Delia's
throat, and Hazel stepped toward the dead woman
to hear better. She turned her ear in.
Hazel
, she
heard,
Hazel
and then the voice began choking and
Hazel righted herself to the vision of blood gushing
from Delia Chandler's neck, the wound smacking
and spitting.

She woke to the sound of her own cries and lay
in the bed, wet with sweat and tears pouring down
her face. She sat up and switched on her bedside
light and began writing her dream down around
the edge of a page from the
Westmuir Record
.
Delia
,
she wrote,
what are you trying to tell me?

* * *

Ray Greene and James Wingate stood in front of
her as she pushed two of the crime-scene photos
across her desk toward them. 'Everything but the
mouths is a distraction. We have to focus on
the mouths.'

Greene spun the photo of Ulmer's destroyed face
toward her. 'If the mouths are so important, then
why did he do this?'

'I thought about that. I think the rest of the
Belladonna's killings are farther apart than Delia
and Ulmer. Nothing he's done hasn't been thought
through completely – he must have been worried
that the same people would be investigating both
of these killings. So he broke the link.' She put her
finger on Delia Chandler's mouth. 'But he did this
to Ulmer too – changed his mouth. Then he
covered his tracks, as it were, with a hammer.' The
detectives stood staring at the pictures of the two
victims. 'We have to find the ones who came
before now,' she said, 'the ones far enough apart
that no one has linked them.' She swept the
pictures back into a folder. 'James, I want you back
on the phone. Find me an unsolved murder less
than two weeks old in a town no bigger than Port
Dundas. It should be between five and nine
hundred kilometres from here.' She brought her
eyes up from Delia's mouth and saw Wingate was
staring at her, lost. 'Where's it eight a.m. right
now?' she said.

Greene looked at his watch. 'Uh, here Hazel.'

'Fine. Wait an hour and start calling some
stations in the western part of the province and in
Manitoba.'

Wingate left and Greene stepped back to shut
the door. He turned and stood with his arms
crossed, watching Hazel lower herself gingerly into
her chair. 'You okay?'

'I'm fine.'

'You don't sleep much.'

'I lie awake and try to figure things out.'

'Fatigue isn't the key to unlocking the where-abouts
of a serial murderer.'

She put her hands flat on the desk and stared at
her second-in-command. 'You want me to take the
day off? Wander the streets and reassure people? Go
find something to do, Ray. Call Howard or go
through yesterday's sheets and find out if there's
anything we should be following up on apart from
this bastard. Okay?'

'It's been four days, you know, Hazel. It's still
early. I'm just saying—'

'Go check the day sheets, Ray! Leave me alone.'

* * *

Greene went out into the pen and closed Hazel's
door behind him. Cartwright had heard Hazel raise
her voice and eyed him as he went past. 'I'm fine,'
he said.

'Can I ask you something?' He stopped beside
her desk. 'I don't think I should be bothering the
chief with this right now.'

'So you want to bother me with it?'

'They saw the cougar again in Kehoe River, and
I don't know what to tell them down there.'

Greene shook his head. 'What do they think
we're going to be able to do? Tell Lonergan or whoever
it is that's calling you that we're not the
frigging Wildlife Services here!'

Cartwright blinked at him. 'All right, Detective.
And in your opinion, is that who they should be
calling?'

'That would be my opinion, Melanie. Unless
that cat can ring doorbells and slit people's throats,
maybe you should be referring them elsewhere.'

'Okay. Then I'll tell Ken Lonergan it's okay with
you to keep his gun at the ready just in case.' He
stared at her. Sometimes Melanie was cowed by
Hazel, but she wouldn't be pushed around by him
he saw, and it struck him then why Hazel had hired
her. She said, 'He feels it incumbent on him to
protect the citizens of his town.'

'Ken Lonergan said
incumbent
.'

'He's the only one in Kehoe River with a rifle.'

'Fine, Melanie. Give me yesterday's log. I'll kill
two birds with one stone.'

She passed him the call binder without taking
her eyes off him.

Howard Spere arrived at the station house an hour
later. 'Fourteen at Delia Chandler's,' he said,
tossing the sheaf of lab reports onto the conferenceroom
table, 'and then fifteen from the sample
taken from Michael Ulmer's hands. Neither
aggregate blood sample actually contained the
blood of the victim it was found on.' He fanned
the lab tests out across the table. The Toronto lab
had separated out fifteen separate DNA signatures
from the Ulmer site. Fourteen of them matched
the bloodstains on Delia Chandler's clothing; the
fifteenth signature was Delia's. Ray Greene was still
in Kehoe River, but Wingate and Hazel cast their
eyes over the papers spread on the table.

She picked up the lab report closest to her and
pushed another one across the table to Wingate.
The one she held told of an unnamed human being
whose unique DNA was being painted like an
autograph in a scrapbook of the dead. It was a
chain, a message being passed down a wire. 'So this
is it, then,' she said. 'We really have a serial killer
here.'

'It would look that way,' said Spere.

'Before he got to Port Dundas, he managed to
kill fourteen people without attracting any
suspicion that anything more significant was going
on than garden-variety murder,' she said. 'There
are fourteen little station houses or police outposts
throughout this country asking themselves why
anyone would want to hurt Uncle Bob or Granny
Faye. They don't know the body in their morgue
has something in common with the ones in ours.'
She paused for a moment. 'When we find where
these other people were killed, we can't say why
we're interested.'

'Why?' said Wingate.

'Because he's getting close to the end of his task.
He's at least in Quebec, and if he's been able, to
this point, to spread sixteen murders across this
country without setting off alarm bells, then
they've been spread widely. He must know Delia
and Ulmer were too close. Like I said, that's why
there's no mouth on Michael Ulmer to solidify the
connection for us.'

'Surely if he's this smart he knows we'd notice
there were fifteen different blood samples on his
latest victim.'

'Then this is his first mistake,' said Hazel. 'Let's
hope he makes another one.'

She flicked an arm out toward Wingate. 'What
have you found out?'

'So far, a body in Pikangikum, north of Dryden,'
he said, opening his notebook. 'It was last Tuesday,
the ninth.'

'Three days before Chandler,' said Howard
Spere. Hazel pushed aside the easel from the
previous afternoon and tugged down the provincial
map on the wall behind the table. Pikangikum was
about one hundred kilometres northwest of Red
Lake, close to the Manitoba border. It was a First
Nations reserve.

'Is this the Ontario Police Services up there, or
does the reserve have its own police?'

'They've got four native officers.' Wingate
looked down at his notes. 'I spoke to the senior
constable there, Gordon Chencillor. The victim
was an elderly band member named Joseph
Atlookan ... eighty-three years old. They've ruled
it a suicide now, said the victim had cut his own
throat.'

'That's what it must have looked like,' said
Hazel. 'Was he dying of something before he was
killed?'

'Whoa,' said Spere. 'It's possible to cut your own
throat, you know. I don't want to sound insensitive
or anything, but let's say this old guy
was
dying of
something – he
is
an old man living on an Indian
reserve.'

Hazel ignored him. 'What about the coroner's
report, James? Are there any pictures?'

'I'll ask. They're going to want to know why,
though.'

'Say you're investigating an apparent suicide
down here on the M'njikaning Reserve. You want
to check out the Atlookan death to rule out foul
play.'

'These places have their own police, Inspector –
why would I be calling from Port Dundas?'

'Use your imagination, Detective. Maybe there's
been a spate of suicides on reserves close to Port
Dundas and you're looking for a pattern. Just get
me some details on this old man. And get Jack a
blood or a tissue sample. Do whatever it takes. I bet
this guy is on Delia Chandler's dress.' She picked
up the phone on the table and dialled Melanie's
extension. She used her other hand to wave the
two men out of her room and off to work. 'Hold
on,' she said to Cartwright, and covered the
receiver. 'Howard, where are we on Delia's
computer?'

'Nowhere. It's a dead end. She wanted a new
duvet cover, but I guess she changed her mind and
chose death instead.'

'You're a model of compassion, Howard. Keep
them looking.' He went out and she put the phone
back to her ear. 'Where's Ray?' She listened a
moment, then hung up and got her cell out. She
stared at the buttons for a moment and then
dialled. It worked. 'Ray?' she said, 'I thought you
were supposed to be going over the logs.'

'Yeah, thanks for the promotion, boss. I'm in
Kehoe River trying to disarm Ken Lonergan. I was
going to look over the logs on lunch.'

'Get back here. I'm putting you in charge of all
the Belladonna's movements east of Renfrew
County.'

'The rest of the country is east of Renfrew, Hazel.'

'You'll understand in a minute. James found a
dead native man about twelve hundred kilometres
from here, on the Manitoba border. He's been dead
exactly one week.'

'This is the only small-town murder Wingate
could find in the province?'

'He was eighty-three, with his throat cut, Ray.
Delia was on Friday, Ulmer on Sunday. The next
one's going to be farther away. I want you to find it
as soon as it happens. The next victim is going to
be number seventeen.'

There was no sound from the other end of the
line. Then, '
What?
'

'Seventeen, Ray. And counting. The lab found
fifteen different sets of genes in the blood on
Ulmer's hands, and none of them were Ulmer's.
But one of them was Delia's. Her clothes had the
blood of fourteen people on it. But not hers. Are
you getting any of this?'

'God,' said Ray Greene, then, 'hold on.' She
heard his voice from an arm's-length distance:
'Hey!' he said, and his voice sounded curious and
frightened at once. 'What the Christ—' he said,
and then Hazel heard the sharp report of a gunshot.

'Ray!' she shouted. She could hear a commotion
on the other end of the line, but the voices were
indistinct. In the middle distance, there was the
sound of another gunshot and someone roaring in
pain. Her cellphone skittered across the
conference-room table, and she rushed out into the
pen. 'I need cars! Whoever's closest to Kehoe
River!' She rushed through the bewildered room,
pulling on her jacket. 'Someone get on dispatch
and get to Kehoe River right now! Ray Greene's
been shot—'

Wednesday 17 November, 6 p.m.

Simon was in a place called Matapédia, on the
southern border of Quebec, and night had fallen.
He'd been noting, on his long drives from the west,
how much shorter the days were now. It was dark at
six in the evening here.

He was due in Doaktown, in the middle of New
Brunswick, the next afternoon. He was wearying
now – the length of his journey was weighing on
him as he came close to completing it. He recalled
his stops in Quesnel, in Grimshaw, in Creighton,
and the joy of meeting the people he had encountered
in this country, a country he had only
imagined could feel this vast. He had been on
rivers, in towns of fewer than three hundred souls,
on Indian reserves, on farms. He had been
welcomed graciously everywhere he went, and he
had conducted himself with ceaseless love. It felt to
him as if his heart had tripled in size inside of him,
a heart through which it seemed the blood of
seventeen souls now pulsed.

He readied a tincture of foxglove in his tent.
Earlier on, the herb had rendered startling, fortifying
effects, and he could see why those with
illnesses of the heart depended on it. It had
eventually failed his brother, but Simon took it in
tribute, and he revelled in the small explosions of
energy it gave. But now, the herb seemed to be failing
him. His body was fighting it. He thought
sometimes that he could feel air passing through
his heart and he wondered if, in sympathy, his own
heart was refusing the foxglove's balm. It occasionally
made him feel weak. He prayed to God to spare
the men and women under his care by letting him
go on. He needed so little time now. After he was
done, he would be like so much dust whether he
was alive or not.

He took out five foxglove leaves from a sleeve
and macerated them. He made the tincture with
chloroform water and sodium carbonate, then
titrated it. The herb's bitter scent filled the inside
of the tent. He took his time. It was pleasurable to
do even the smallest tasks with complete attention.
He loved to move slowly and watch himself work,
the way the drippings of the freshly made drug fell
into the glass through the cheesecloth. He recalled
his brother's eyes patiently watching the drug being
made.
You are a blessing to me
, he'd say, holding
Simon's hand in his, that cold hand. Simon would
try not to show his brother his deepening grief.
He'd say to him,
You will return to strength. You will
walk among us again
, and his brother would put his
hand behind Simon's neck and draw him down to
him, bestow a kiss on his mouth. Simon would
smell the stale air leaking from his brother's body
and try to take it into himself, to drink those
poisons away. But his brother had died. No matter
their ministrations, his own or those of his followers.
And then they drifted away, those men and women
with their false hearts, and Simon was alone.
Thinking of their perfidy, he regretted his haste in
Havre-Saint-Pierre. Mrs Iagnemma deserved better
than he had time to give her, even if she had tried
to meddle. She had, at least, given of herself. He'd
had such fine ideas for her, his tongueless songbird.
Instead he rushed her, gave her so little of the grace
she had earned. His anger had been replaced by
shame, but at the same time, he knew he could
have done nothing else. The situation demanded
dispatch, and dispatch he did.

The tincture was ready after standing for an
hour. He diluted it slightly with spring water, but
not enough to mask the pain of the bitterness in
the leaf. The Saxons had called the plant 'folke's
glove' – the faerie's glove – and the spots on the
foxglove blossoms were said to be the places where
these small creatures of the forest had touched the
flower with their tiny fingers. Without it, his
brother would have left this world sooner than he
did.

His brother, Peter, was his only family. They'd
never known their mother, and it had been hard
for their father raising two sons alone. His father
had been a quiet man, happier with books than
with people. He'd grieved their mother for years
after she'd left him, grieved her as if she'd died, and
for all they knew, she had. And when he died,
there was no one willing to take them. There were
foster homes on the mainland, and they placed the
brothers with the priests. No one wanted brothers.
Eventually, a childless couple took in Peter, the
docile child, the weak child, and took him away to
another province. Simon, in his rage, had grown
strong, and no one would have him. He took down
the crucifix above his bed and replaced it with a
picture of Peter. The priests didn't like it. 'Christ
was meek in his faith, but not feeble,' said one of
them angrily. 'Your brother's as helpless as a kitten.
He couldn't save a penny.' Simon wrote his brother
and begged him to hold on. When he reached
sixteen, the priests released him. He heard his
brother calling him. He found him in the middle of
the country, chained like an animal to a bed, his
adoptive parents cashing the government cheques.
He smashed in their skulls like he was grinding
meal and brought his brother home. He'd saved
Peter. Peter never forgot it. But now he was gone
and all that was left was Simon: Simon the
survivor, Simon the saviour.

He poured the drug into the back of his throat
and he gagged, but held his mouth closed and made
sure the tincture went down. He stretched out on
the floor of the tent. It was important to take the
herb on an empty stomach, but he had not eaten
for a day now, and his entire system cried out for
nourishment. He knew he would be nourished
soon enough. He would make his meeting in
Doaktown, then on Sunday he would be in Pictou
and he would be on the ocean. He would celebrate
his arrival on the other coast. Then there would be
one left, and that one would be the most joyous of
all.

In the morning, he drove the two hours into the
village of Doaktown. It was on the Miramichi, and
driving down the main street, he could see the river
flashing between houses and down the few side
streets. He had purchased three organic eggs from a
farm outside of Bathurst and stopped by a lake partway
through his drive to eat them. There was now
very little in the way of greenery that he could trust
was still nutritious – he would have to eat foods
that did not agree with him until he could get to
the Atlantic and reward himself with meat. He
pierced each egg with a hypodermic needle and
drew out the insides. It was pleasantly comic to see
an egg transmitted from one shell to another:
inside the syringe, the egg was transformed into a
column of swirling yellow and grey. It looked like
a broken tiger eye. He squirted the contents of
three syringes into his mouth and swallowed. Then
he crushed one of the empty eggshells and ate it for
the calcium.

It was the end of the work week in Doaktown, and
the town was fairly quiet. He found Prospect Street
easily and parked at the end of it. It was ten in the
morning; he was precisely on time. The house where
the priest lived was halfway down the street, set back
on a large yard. He knocked on the door and the old
man opened it a crack. 'Simon?'

'Father,' he said. 'I'm pleased to find you looking
so well.'

The priest admitted his guest. Simon stepped in
and looked around the cedar-scented house. It was
almost empty of furniture, a stark place, with
varnished wooden floors. 'I've given most of my
belongings away. The church has most of the
furniture.'

'Did they think it strange?'

'Perhaps they think I'm planning on spending
the last of my days in the church, surrounded by my
own things. A right nuisance to everyone. I've
earned it though, so let them complain.'

'Let's find a place to sit down, Father,' said
Simon. The old priest led him into the bare living
room, where there still remained a set of chairs and
a modest wooden table. The man sat with difficulty:
there was cancer throughout his spine. 'How
much pain do you have?'

'Enough to remind me that I'm still here.' He
watched Simon lower his heavy black bag onto the
tabletop. 'How do we do this, then?'

'Slowly, and with care. You're not expecting
anyone?'

'People drop in all the time. But I've drawn the
curtains, and we can choose not to answer
the door. I'd like to ask you for a favour, though.'

'Anything.'

'I'd like to pray.'

'We will pray, Father.'

'Not your way, Simon. I'd like to commend
myself before committing what is, you must
acknowledge, a sin.'

'I'm sure God will allow you a transgression in
honour of a great deed, Father.'

'I'd like to be certain.' Simon thought for a
moment, then took his bag off the table and
lowered it to the floor. He lay his arms on the table,
palms up, and the priest lay his hands in Simon's
and closed his eyes. 'Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy
will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us
this day our daily bread. And forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against
us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.' He opened
his eyes and looked up. '"Trespass" is an interesting
concept, isn't it, Simon?'

'It is.'

'It was "debt" in the Old English. But "trespass"
is more interesting to me. It suggests territory. The
soul as a territory onto which someone might tread
without leave. But we forgive them these
trespasses.'

'Are you afraid, Father Price?'

'No.' The priest drew his hands off the table.
'Only that I am allowing you to trespass, and God
must forgive us both.'

'God is going to hear our call, Father. We will be
made whole again; we will form a righteous
council.'

'''Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies
a footstool for your feet.'''

Simon pulled his bag up to the tabletop again.
He spread the mouth of the bag. 'We have no
enemies, Father. Those who think they are against
us will simply be left behind in the end. They'll live
bereft of our truth. I pity them.' He took out his
vials and laid them on the table. Father Price stared
at them.

'These are the agencies of my death, are they?
Little bottles of dust and powder.'

'This is belladonna,' said Simon. 'It will make
you sleep.'

'And then what will you do to me?'

Simon got up from the table, taking the vials in
his hand. In the priest's kitchen, there were two
cups and a kettle already set out. Simon turned on
the stove and boiled water. Through the kitchen
door, he looked at the old man sitting slightly
hunched at his table, and it came to him anew
what cruelty it was to give a man a body only to
make him witness its decline, its failure. When he
and Peter were young, they would lie under their
covers and compare their bodies. The taut muscle
coming down over the shoulder and under the
collarbone, the wreathwork of thin flesh below the
eye, the blind moles of their penises. Each detail
logged in the other, a repetition of life. He saw
himself age in Peter, saw his life passing through his
brother's, as a charge does through a wire, both of
their lives a coil glowing in an airless glass, destined
to burn out. That God had chosen for them their
burdens was a blessing for them both, as through
their weakness, Simon had found their calling.

'I will break you in twain,' he said to the priest.
'Like crushing a seed to draw the oil out.'

Father Price turned in his seat to look at Simon.
'Will I feel it?'

'I promise you won't.'

'Then let's begin, son.'

The kettle boiled and Simon prepared Father
Price's tea. The priest drank it slowly, smiling over
the rim of his cup at his visitor, his saviour. His eyes
began to droop. 'This morning,' Father Price said
slowly, 'I dispatched a small bottle of Holy Water to
your brother. I hope he will receive it soon.'

'My brother appreciates your kindness, Father, as
do I.'

'I did wonder, when I took it to the post office,
what he would do with it. It's a strange gift. Have
all your ... friends sent religious articles?'

'Oh, no,' said Simon. 'It doesn't matter what it
is. I just ask that it be something from the heart. A
tribute as it were. Also, these gifts tell him how far
along I am. For instance, now he will know I've
been to see you. He'll know how close we all are to
our goal.' Simon smiled at Father Price. 'Have I
answered you well?'

'Of course. I didn't mean to question your—'

'Not at all,' said Simon. 'Now tell me: are you
strong enough to stand?'

The priest stood carefully, and Simon, apologizing,
undressed him. The older man stood, shivering
slightly, under his guest's gaze. 'You've been left
almost untouched by the storm of life,' said Simon.
'I'm very pleased.' He helped Father Price back
into his clothes, and then pulled his chair out for
him to sit again.

'I will have another small dram of that,' said the
old man, his arm almost too weak to lift his cup.
'But doesn't it have a wee kick, now?'

'It does,' said the one who called himself Simon,
and he filled the priest's cup. 'Let us pray.'