The Calling (22 page)

Ray clapped robotically. Hazel put the book
down. 'We're going to catch this guy with poetry?'
Wingate swept the book off the table and went to
put it back on his shelf. 'That's
yours
, James?'

'Previous tenant must have left it here,' said
Wingate.

Jill Yoon sat down at the computer. She typed
something into her keyboard. There was a kind of
high tension in the room. 'You ready?' she asked
Hazel.

'She's not,' said Greene, 'but show her anyway.'

Hazel turned to face the fridge and as she did, an
image of her own mouth blinked into existence on
the hollow green head, across its eyes. It was almost
as wide as the head. She heard Yoon clicking
behind her, and the mouth shrank and began to
move down the ligature until it reached the zone
where a human mouth would normally be seen. It
seemed to snap into place. Yoon stabbed a button
on the keyboard and the head with Hazel's mouth
breathed in. She narrowed her eyes at it. 'What the
hell?'

'Watch.'

'Today is the twentieth of November, a
Saturday,' said Hazel's mouth in her own voice. Her
lips had moved as if she'd been filmed speaking the
words. Her own mouth fell open. Jill clicked a few
more keys and Hazel's mouth breathed in again.
'
Aujourd'hui, c'est le vingtième novembre, un
samedi.
'

'Holy shit!'

'That's just a silly computer trick,' she said, 'the
French. I can borrow the English phonemes for it.'

'How did you do that?'

'The three pictures I took establish tongue-size,
lip-width and -length, and the volume of your oral
cavity.'

'Yuck,' said Greene.

'The program works out all the other measurements.'
Yoon got up and flipped on the kitchen
lights. 'It's called digital visetics. The program
translates phonetic units of speech into visual ones:
visemes. Usually we use it to train the deaf for
speechreading. But it can go the other way, too.'

'You can take our victims ...' said Hazel.

Jill Yoon nodded. 'Come,' she said.

Hazel went to stand behind Yoon. On her computer
screen was an array of characters, beside
which was a rudimentary mouth shape. She
explained that each symbol corresponded to an
English phoneme, and that each phoneme had its
own viseme. Yoon clicked on a series of these
characters, and they appeared in a window at the top
of the screen. 'Look on the fridge again,' she told
Hazel, and Hazel turned. She heard a click, and her
computerized mouth went into a silent spasm.

'What was that?'

'I typed in a random collection of phonemes and
uploaded them to the ligature as visemes. Do you
want to hear what you said?'

'Sure,' said Hazel.

The face on the screen breathed in. Then it said,
'Aah-haay rrrrr lemmbebepp gyuh.' Yoon fiddled
with her settings, and then the face said, 'Aahhaay?
Lemmbe
bepp
GYUH!'

'That's the most sensible thing she's said all
week,' said Greene.

Hazel turned back to Jill Yoon. 'How long do you
need?'

'A while. I presume your pictures aren't lit for
the kinds of measurements I need. I have to scan
and clean them to make sure I get accurate readings.
And then it's going to take time for me to
make sense of the results. The computer knows
about fifty thousand words in English, so I can get
it to search for words that use those visemes in
some order. But the program doesn't have any use
for grammar. It knows words, not sentences.'

'But I just spoke a sentence,' said Hazel. 'In
English and in French.'

'The program didn't know it was a sentence. It
thinks it's just a series of sounds. You're going to
give me some pictures, correct?' Hazel looked over
at Wingate and he nodded. The pictures were in
the room. 'As Marlene told you I'm sure, a lot of
visemes could be more than a single phoneme.
Like, if you say, "Where there's life, there's hope,"
to a deaf person, he might think you said, "Where's
the lavender soap?" There's context in real life, so
that a person should know if you're talking about
taking a shower or taking your life, but my program
is going to translate your fifteen pictures into a lot
more than fifteen phonemes, and then it's going to
have to strip them for possible word units, and then
after that, someone's going to have to figure what
kind of order they should go in.'

'How's twenty-four hours?' said Hazel.

'It's a start.'

'It's probably all the time you're going to get.
James, give her what she needs.'

Wingate came forward with a thick departmental
envelope. 'We just added Winston Price.
The priest from Doaktown. So that's sixteen in
total now.' Yoon took the envelope in her hand
and unwound the string. She pulled the pictures
out and laid them on the table. Already all three
officers were getting their coats. 'Take whatever
you need for food,' said Wingate. 'The fridge is full.'

Yoon was shaking her head.

'You shoulda saved your money,' said Greene.
'She just lost her appetite.'

Sunday 21 November, 3 p.m.

Sevigny had spent the last of Saturday afternoon in
a rented car parked at the side of Sewatin Road on
the outskirts of Port Hardy. He'd flown there from
Vancouver and spent the entire flight over the
water in a state of bliss. The whitecaps below had
appeared as dustings of sugar from that height, and
it had put his mind off what could lie ahead of him.

In Port Hardy, he rented a car and went to his
motel, a tiny wooden structure off the main drag.
His accent seemed to prove to the lady at the desk
there that he'd come a long way for some sportfishing,
and he let her believe that. He was in
plainclothes to keep the curiosity factor at a bare
minimum.

He showered and went into town to buy some
food, and then drove north out of the townsite.
Four kilometres down Sewatin Road, he pulled
over and watched, choosing a spot about a hundred
metres away from a bank of gleaming postboxes
that lined the road like a scale model of an
industrial warehouse. He was unlikely to catch
anyone checking their mail on a Saturday afternoon,
but there was no point in delaying. He'd
likely be in this spot all day tomorrow and Monday
as well. The box assigned to 'Jane Buck' was one of
the ten oversized ones along the bottom of the
array, and in the five hours he sat in the car sipping
coffee and eating apples out of a paper bag, he saw
all of two people come and go. Every half hour he
turned on the motor for ten minutes to reheat the
car; it was six degrees outside. No one unlocked
box number 31290. When it got dark, he went
back to the motel, ate two large garden salads, and
went to bed.

He returned to his spot at six the following
morning. By two in the afternoon, not a soul had
come by the postal array. He was freezing and
running out of fruit. Then, at three, just as he was
beginning to think he was wasting his time, someone
came and unlocked 31290. It
was
a woman.
There were two packages in her mailbox. She took
them to her car and drove off farther down Sewatin
Road. He followed at a comfortable distance, and
she eventually turned north onto an unpaved road,
followed that for four kilometres, and then turned
onto a private lane where the grass had grown up
through the carpath. From the road, he could see a
small structure in the trees, a rough shack no bigger
than a hunting cabin. He pulled his car over and
got out in time to see her go behind the house. He
went into a crouch and ran through the brush
beside the driveway and up over the still-thick
lawn to the side of the house. His heart was pounding.
He pressed the side of his gun against his leg as
he sidestepped the length of the house. When he
reached the end of the wall he could see the
woman was keying the door to a small shed at
the back of the property. She entered the dark
space with the two packages and a moment later
reappeared empty-handed. He twisted around into
the open and drew a bead on her. '
Arrête!
' he
shouted, forgetting himself, and the woman
screamed. 'Stop!' he said. 'Step away! Keep your
hands up front!'

The woman's hands flew into the air, and he
rushed to her and spun her around, pushing her
back against the shed wall, where he kicked
her legs apart. 'Don't hurt me! Don't hurt me!' she
cried over and over as he patted her down.

'I'm the police!' he said. He'd forgotten in the
midst of his anxiety that he was in plainclothes.

She was clean. He spun her to face him. 'Please!
What have I done?'

'What's your name?'

'Jane! My name is Jane! My ID's in the car—'

'You show me.'

She walked in front of him, looking over her
shoulder, and when she lowered one of her arms, he
reached forward and slapped her under the elbow
and she put the arm back over her head. At the car,
he saw her purse sitting on the passenger seat and,
keeping his gun level on her, he opened the door
and took it out. 'Show me,' he said, handing her
the purse. She fumbled in it and removed a cloth
wallet. Her driver's licence was registered to Jane
Buck. He looked at her and then at the picture.
'This is really your name?'

'Who are you?'

'I'm asking the questions.'

'But who are you? Why are you doing this?'

'Jesus Christ,' he said and he noticed her wince.
He dug his badge out of his back pocket and flipped
it to her. She examined it and then looked up at
him again and she seemed even more frightened of
him. 'Okay?' he said. 'Now tell me who lives here.'

'I just bring him his mail,' she said, her whole
body shaking.

'
Who?
'

'His name is ... his name is Peter.'

'Goddammit!' Sevigny shouted, throwing her
things to the ground, 'I'm not playing twenty
questions, woman. Who lives here, and what have
you got to do with them?'

'Peter Mallick! His name is Peter Mallick! I
bring him whatever's in the mailbox. That's all.'

'The mailbox is registered to you.'

She narrowed her eyes at him. 'How do you
know that?'

'I'm the police, lady, I showed you my badge. I
know what I know. Open that shed again.'

She hesitated but started back toward the rear of
the house. 'He'll be very upset if we wake him,' she
said. 'He's sick. He needs his rest.' She put the key
back in the door and opened it on a shallow, dark
space. Despite the cold, he could smell the sourness
of the little shack. It took a moment for his eyes to
adjust, and then he could see that there were
upward of twenty unopened packages on the floor.
He leaped at the nearest one. It had been sent on
the seventh of October from Wells, British
Columbia, from a woman named Adrienne
Grunwald. The one beside it had the name of
Morton Halfe and a return address in Eston,
Saskatchewan. Then his eye fell on a small box
with Gladys Iagnemma's name on it. It had been
sent two days before her death. None of them had
been opened. '
Fucking hell
,' he said under his
breath. 'Why are all these packages here?'

'I told you, I just—'

'Do you speak to this man? To Peter?'

'He mustn't be disturbed.'

'Says who?'

'His brother.'

He couldn't help it; he shook her violently.
'Give me a name!' She stared at him in terror, and
Sevigny turned her by the shoulder and pushed her
back out into the daylight. The back door to the
house was twenty metres away. The two windows
on either side of it were obscured by curtains. He
pulled Buck by her purse strap toward the house.

'No,' she said in a hoarse, frightened voice.
'We're not to go in the house.'

'What is the name of the man whose brother
lives here?'

'Please.'

'Then I will ask the man inside this house.'

'I don't have a key to the house.'

'You have a key. Open the door.'

'Please—' she said, and she opened her arms. He
tried the door. 'Simon,' she said, 'his name is
Simon. If he knew we were here—'

'What? He would kill us?'

'Please,' she said. 'I vowed—' He didn't wait for
her to finish. He took a step back and smashed the
door open with the flat of his boot. The door
exploded against the wall on the other side. There
was the smell of dust, and then, gusting in under it,
a sickening death reek. They both recoiled from it.

'When was the last time you saw the man who
lives here?' said Adjutor Sevigny.

'Peter must not ... be disturbed,' she said, her
voice suddenly querulous as she stepped back from
the broken door. Then she turned suddenly and
puked on the step. He grabbed her under the
armpit and muscled her back out onto the
grass.

'Stand up straight.'

'You don't know what you've done—'

'Give me your car keys,' he said. She meekly put
them into his hand. 'Sit down and don't move.' He
got out his cell and flipped it open. There was no
signal. 'Goddammit. You have a phone?'

'In my purse.' He grabbed the purse off her
shoulder and rooted around in it for her phone. He
flipped it open. There was a signal. He dialled Port
Dundas. Someone answered in the station house.
'Get me Hazel Micallef right away.'

'She's not here,' said the voice. 'Who is this?'

'Detective Adjutor Sevigny! I'm calling from the
fucking Pacific!'

'Hold on, hold on, I'll forward you to her cell,
hold on.' He waited through a series of clicks, and
then Detective Inspector Micallef picked up before
it even rang.

'Hello?' she said, sounding bewildered. 'Sevigny,
is that you?'

He could hear voices behind her. 'I'm here,' he
said. He was short of breath. 'There is something
bad happened here ...'

'Where's "here"?'

'I follow the woman after she pick up the mail.
After she
picked
up the mail. I mean, I followed her.
I'm at a cabin in the woods, maybe it's ten kilometres
from the town site. There is a man here, she
says, Jane Buck.'

'You're with her right now?'

'I broke the door.'

'Hold on, Detective, just slow down. Where are
you exactly?'

'I told you! North of Port Hardy. In the woods. I
followed her, I followed Jane Buck here. There is a
house. A shack. If there is someone in there, they
are not alive.'

'How do you know?'

'I can smell it.'

'Have you been in?'

'Not yet. But there is absolutely for certain
something dead in this house.'

She said nothing for a moment. 'Do you have
something you can soak with water? A cloth or
something?' He opened Buck's purse; there was no
Kleenex or hankie, but he saw something he
thought would work and reluctantly took it out of
its plastic wrap. There was a connector for a garden
hose beside the back door, and he turned it on and
ran water over the thing and pressed it to his nose
and mouth.

'What are you doing?' said Jane Buck, looking at
him in disgust.

'Shut up,' he said.

'Now go back in,' said Hazel. 'Stay on the line.'

He looked at the frightened woman squatting in
the grass and unsnapped his flashlight from his
belt. The moment he crossed the threshold to the
house, the smell penetrated his makeshift mask.
'Shit,' he said.

'What is it?' said Hazel.

'I'm in ... a small ... it is a small room,' he
whispered, choking on the air and taking shallow
little breaths. He was trying to hold the cellphone
to his head and the mask to his mouth with one
hand. 'There is nothing here. Cold and dark. Two
chairs and a table.' His feet crunched on grit. He
lifted his flashlight and swung the beam over the
room. 'One door in the wall. Over there,' he said.

'Open it. I'm here with you, Sevigny. Open the
door.'

He crossed the room, the smell driving at him,
and put his hand on the knob. It was cold, stiff. He
forced it to the right and the door opened. He lifted
his flashlight. '
Christi tabemac
—'

'Adjutor ...'

'My God.'

There was a small bed against the wall across the
room, nothing more than a pallet of straw. On top
of it, his face a maze of maggots, lay the body of a
man, his arms hanging down. A black, roughhewn
stone pillar was standing on his crushed chest, as if
it had fallen out of the sky. Sevigny looked up,
expecting to see a hole in the roof, but it was solid.
He looked back down at the ruined body. It was a
man who, in life, would have weighed well over
three hundred pounds. The body was suppurating a
thick black fluid.

'Detective?'

'I find a body,' said Sevigny hoarsely. He tried to
describe what he was looking at. His voice seemed
to issue out into a huge silence. 'I am going to be
sick,' he said.

'Hang in there, talk to Ray.' She passed Greene
her phone.

'Whose body is it?' said Greene.

'Peter Mallick. Jane Buck says Peter Mallick.
Brother of Simon Mallick. I find an unopen
package in a shed in back of the house with the
date of October seven on it. There are others. He
has been dead ... a long time.' He turned and ran,
unable to contain himself any longer, and heaved
violently onto the floor beyond the doorway. 'I
have never ... in my—'

'Easy, Detective.'

'I have a woman on the back lawn ... there is
something I don't like about this woman—'

'You better call in the locals,' said Greene.

'I know what to do,' he snapped. He tried to
settle himself, and he stepped back into the room
and approached the bed. He could only imagine
the smell in here had it been ten degrees warmer. 'I
am trying to look at his mouth.' He leaned down,
overwhelmed by the stinking cloud of decay that
hung over the body, and used the edge of the flash-light
lens to brush the lace of maggots away from
Mallick's mouth. The light turned the inside of the
body's head a sickly dark orange. Sevigny spun and
vomited again, then turned back. The mouth was
closed in a thin line.

'Try not to soil the crime scene too much,' said
Greene.

'There is nothing. His mout' is just closed.'

'You have an accent when you're terrified,
Sevigny.'

'If you was 'ere, Raymond, I bet you don't be able
to talk English at all.'

He heard a rustle and Hazel's voice telling Greene
off. 'Take some pictures for us,' she said, 'and get out
of there. There's an RCMP detachment up there?'

'I don't know.'

'Find out and get back here. Try not to tell them
anything they don't need to know.'

'Hold on,' he said. 'There is a desk in the corner.
I didn't see it from the doorway.' He crossed the
room to the desk and shone his flashlight onto its
surface. 'There is a laptop here—'

'A laptop?'

'There's a computer in that shithole?' said
Greene in the background.

'And some books. Old books.' He opened one.
'This one is in Italian ...' he said. He pressed the
cold pad to his face for a moment. 'No, Latin. I
recognize it from the nuns.'