The Night Bell Read online

  “Do we have molasses?”

  “In … in your tea, Mom?”

  “No. In the cupboard, Hazel.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Would you mind looking with your eyes?”

  Hazel did. There was no molasses. “There’s plenty,” she said. She couldn’t turn around or her mother would see her crying. “What are you making? What’s the list for?”

  “A fruitcake for the Chandlers. I’ll buy the others, but I like to make the Chandlers their own.”

  “Just the Chandlers?”

  “Well, Delia was such a dearheart that time, stepping up when your father was in hospital. She was a great help to me during my campaign. She painted some of our posters by hand.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Hazel.

  “And of course Rupert and I play bridge at the same club. I see him all the time.”

  Rupert had been dead for decades. He’d been dead long before her father and Delia had begun their affair.

  There was a knock at the door. Hazel put her mother’s tea in front of her and quickly left the room, wiping her face along the arm of her dressing gown. The paramedics saw this kind of thing all the time. “In here,” she said, letting them in. Two women. Behind them, standing beside his car, was James Wingate, dressed in uniform. He said something she couldn’t make out. She gestured him toward her with her arms. “Get in here!”

  He took his cap off and entered. “I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “What’s going on? Did they find Mel?”

  “Oh … no, I –”

  “Why are you in uniform?”

  “In case you needed me here. To … to have an officer present.”

  “You can’t be an officer present because you are not currently an officer of anything, you’re on admin leave. And how did you –”

  “I know Mira. What happened to Mel?”

  “Fuck, come in. Who’s Mira?”

  “The paramedic with the freckles. She sent me a text when the call came in. She knows we’re …”

  “Close the door behind you.” For a moment she felt dizzy and she reached out for a wall. Wingate caught her forearm in his hand, lightly, and immediately let go. She waved him toward the kitchen. “Do you even know about Renald?”

  “What?”

  “He’s missing. Melvin Renald.”

  “Oh shit –”

  “I spoke to someone. On his radio. Someone fired two shots at me.”

  They stood in the doorway to the kitchen. The paramedics sat at the table and Emily held a teapot aloft between them. “This tea is terrible,” she said. “I didn’t offer them any.”

  Hazel was eager to have something to do with her hands. “I’ll make more,” she said.

  Emily sized up the paramedics with a squinty eye. “Are you two pilots?”

  “No, we’re from town. We came to see you. How are you feeling Ms. Micallef?”

  Emily looked at them and then over at Hazel. “Hazel? These ladies are talking to you.”

  “Call her Mayor,” Hazel told them.

  “They’re not calling me Miss Micallef?” She pinned the paramedics with an icy glare. She could hold two people still, one with each eye.

  “No, ma’am, Mayor. How are you feeling?”

  “A little piqued if the truth be known. I’ve misplaced my cigarettes.”

  “I have one,” said the paramedic with the freckles. “Is this brand OK, Madam Mayor?”

  “It’s fine,” said Emily.

  Mira passed her the pack, and Emily took one and leaned forward to have it lit. She hadn’t smoked a cigarette in over forty years. But then she took a natural, long drag and exhaled slowly.

  “Do you know what day it is?” Mira asked.

  “What kind of question is that? Are you both pilots?”

  “No ma’am,” she said. “We’re paramedics. Your daughter called us and said you were having trouble breathing.”

  “She’s not herself,” Hazel said in a stage whisper. “She hasn’t smoked since she was in her fifties.”

  Emily took a second drag on the cigarette. “You know I can hear you, right?”

  “Mayor Micallef, how old are you?”

  “What a question. Are you serious?”

  “Well –”

  The kettle began to whistle. “I’ll make the tea,” Hazel said.

  Wingate rushed to turn off the stove. Emily followed him with her eyes. Hazel realized her mother was looking at what she thought was the only police officer in the room.

  “Oh for the lovvah … What did you do now, Hazel?” she said, rounding on her daughter.

  “No – no, Mayor,” Wingate said, “she hasn’t done anything at all. I was just dropping by.”

  “Since when does the constabulary drop by?”

  “When an ambulance is dispatched to the home of the mayor, you know, people are concerned.”

  “This is not about that Lim girl, is it? Hazel has already –”

  “No, Mom, he’s not here about that.” Hazel turned to the room in desperation. “Can we do something? Is there nothing we can do?”

  The two paramedics seemed to be passing telepathic considerations. They exchanged one glance, then another. Hazel followed Mira out of the kitchen. They heard Emily say, “You have to wonder what the world is coming to if you can’t go for a walk in broad daylight.”

  “Would you mind taking back your cigarettes? She’s ninety,” Hazel said.

  “Of course. Do you have power of attorney over your mother?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “We can’t really do anything without someone’s consent. Will she consent to taking a sedative?”

  “Can we trick her?”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  They returned to the kitchen and Mira said, “We’ll be going then.” She gestured to her partner. “Thank you, Madam Mayor, for having us.”

  “It was a great pleasure. Be careful now.”

  “And we hope your headache goes away. Maybe you should take something?”

  “For what?”

  “To help your headache.”

  Emily spent a moment processing what Mira meant. “It’ll go away on its own,” she said.

  The paramedics left. Enough, Hazel thought. She got up – to use the washroom, she said – and went quietly to her own bathroom where she kept her Ativan. They were the blue sublinguals, the ones that got to work right away. Then she crept back downstairs, silently opened the front door, and rang her own doorbell. “I’ll get it,” she called. “Just a minute!” She waited there for a moment, her mind racing. “Oh, that’s terrific. Thank you so much! We really do appreciate it.” She closed the door loudly enough to be heard in the kitchen.

  “Isn’t that good service?” she said to her mother. “They sent the pills for your headache.”

  “My head is fine. And I’d better get a move on. Alan will be out at three.” She stood, or tried to stand, and then she sat again. “Goodness,” she laughed. “Can’t be tired at lunchtime!”

  “You’d better take one of the pills that nice lady sent over. Pep you up.”

  “Pep me up, eh? What is it?”

  “A pep pill,” Hazel said brightly. Wingate filled a glass of water. She opened her hand to show her mother the two small blue pills.

  “What are they?”

  “They’re vitamins for your health. You haven’t had them yet today, have you?”

  “Oh – I don’t think so.”

  “Good thing she remembered!” said Wingate, handing her the glass.

  Emily took it from him. Then she took the pills. Just accepting them had a magical effect, as if some part of her knew she was not well. Almost before she’d finished the water, she began to look drowsy. She shrugged her shoulders up. “Where is Alan?” she asked. Then her eyes began to close.

  Wingate drove back to Port Dundas. There were small blocks of wood duct-taped to his brake and accelerator pedals now, as it was hard for him to pus
h his right foot down. And it was a task getting out of the car, as well as assembling his movements in the right order to achieve a standing position. Getting out of a car was only slightly easier than getting into one, which involved leaning away while facing front, squatting while on one leg, turning and bending, and falling backward.

  Much of the time, his body felt like something he was wearing, some kind of technologically advanced suit that sometimes moved under mental command but often didn’t. He had to get it properly oriented before walking across a parking lot and opening a door, for instance. Greene met him as he was coming through the pen. “I don’t know what to tell you, Commander,” Wingate said. “Her mother seemed really out of it.”

  “Should you be in your uniform?”

  “I thought just in case.”

  Greene gave him an appraising squint. “In case of what?”

  “Hazel’s at home with an emergency. I thought –”

  “Did they go to the hospital?”

  “No. She’s staying at home. To watch her. Emily.” Half the pen was empty. “Is everyone back on the sweep today?”

  “Most of them. I sent Fraser to the Fremonts’ and Macdonald’s interviewing people about Renald. So far – nothing. And there’s something else.” Wingate twitched involuntarily. “Are you sure you’re OK?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “When did you start wearing the uniform again?”

  “What do you mean by something else?”

  Greene held him in his gaze a beat longer. “Come look at this.”

  He led Wingate into his office and turned his computer screen toward him. It was an email message from Sandra Fremont, sent at 12:45 in the morning. Wingate read it. “Has Hazel seen this?”

  “I only just saw it myself.”

  Wingate dialled Hazel’s home number. “Sorry to bother you again. It’s important.”

  “Renald?”

  “Maybe. We don’t know. Sandy Fremont sent Skip an email in the middle of the night. After Renald was taken.”

  “And?”

  “The sergeant is next,” he read.

  “Next what? Sandy Fremont sent that?”

  “It came from her address. But I don’t think it was Sandy Fremont who sent it.”

  “Is that all?” she asked.

  “It’s signed Please Stand By.”

  She coughed her disbelief. “Is anyone down –”

  “Ray sent Fraser. And Macdonald is down there canvassing for Renald.”

  There was a bit of a silence at her end. “Good,” said Hazel. “And where are you, James?”

  “With Ray.”

  “You get around.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Pass me to him.” He did, and Ray covered the mouthpiece until Wingate left the office. “How’s he look to you?” she asked Ray.

  “James? Like an irradiated boy scout.”

  “He came to my house at seven. With a pair of lesbian paramedics. My house was very strange this morning, Ray. Can you handle James? I’ve got my hands full.”

  “No problem. Difference between you and James is James obeys direct orders.”

  “Send him home.”

  “I will. Check in with me?”

  “Thanks.”

  Greene disconnected. He called Wingate back into his office. “Shift’s over. Go get your uniform dry-cleaned and get some sleep. Am I supposed to call your brother or something?”

  “I’m not in detention, Skip. I’ll go. You’ll let me know if anything else turns up about … about Sergeant Renald?”

  Ray promised his detective sergeant that he would.

  ] 8 [

  1957

  They’d eaten turkey three Sundays in a row. It was a tradition ever since she was a kid that her mother would cook a huge turkey at Thanksgiving and then freeze the leftovers in order to have roast dinner for as many Sundays as it would last. Thanks to her mayoralty, Emily usually received her turkey as a gift from someone, and no one gave the mayor of Port Dundas a small turkey. The one she’d cooked two Sundays ago had been a sixteen-pounder. They’d be eating it until Christmas.

  They’d invited her father’s parents and Emily’s father over. Grandma Blythe lived at the Poplars and no longer recognized anyone. She had been sick since before Hazel was born, but the woman’s stern gaze still presided over the living room from a photograph above the mantel. “Your mother’s face should not be in a room where people are drinking Scotch,” her father said to Emily, toasting the framed photograph sardonically.

  His father-in-law frowned at the comment. “Blythe was not against the occasional tipple,” he said.

  “A shandy is not a tipple, Craig.”

  They all came to the table. Alan had refused to dress properly for dinner and sat in his overalls. He had been hard to “civilize.” Ten years in a county orphanage could do that to a person. They tolerated his strange habits, like holding his fork in his fist as if he were going to stab someone with it.

  The defrosted and reheated turkey was making its appearance this week as Turkey à la King. They said grace and then the bowls and platters were passed around and everyone filled their plate. Alan would not eat anything with a sauce on it, so a separate dish had been prepared for him with plain white meat, mashed potatoes, and Brussel sprouts sautéed with bacon, which he wouldn’t touch. It didn’t really matter what you put in front of Alan. Usually he just ate bread.

  “So, what is happening in town?” asked Hazel’s grandmother. Hazel called her Nana. She was the one who asked questions of the town’s mayor with a slight catch in her voice, and that’s how Hazel knew she was being polite. “What is happening with that Chinese girl? Has she turned up?”

  Emily looked down the table at Hazel. “No,” she said. “The girl hasn’t been seen at all since last week. But we have a better idea of what might have happened. Hazel and Gloria Whitman went in to see Gord Drury.”

  “And?”

  “Gloria gave a description of a man she encountered coming out onto Grant Street that evening. They did a sketch of the man, didn’t they, sweetheart?”

  Hazel was caught off guard. This was the first she’d ever heard of Gloria’s encounter. “Um, I think so,” she said.

  “According to Gloria, the man was also Chinese,” Emily said. “Drury’s questions stirred her memory and she realized she’d seen a man at the end of the path that leads back into town behind Kilmartin Bluff Park.”

  Hazel’s father was cutting his meat. “That seems to fit with what I’ve heard Herbert Lim say. That she probably ran off. Problems at home, and the first fellow who cocks his hat is reason enough to throw in her lot with him.”

  “Today’s generation just wants to get everything done quick-quick,” said Grandpa Craig. “They want to grow up quick, make their money, buy their houses and cars. Hope they don’t want to live and die quick too.”

  “Well, I guess you just don’t know how things work in other people’s families, and certainly not among people like that.”

  “Evan,” said Emily. “Like what?”

  “I mean folks who have no experience with the Canadian way. Maybe they did things differently at home.”

  “You mean chase their kids away because they didn’t approve of them?”

  “Shacking up at the age of seventeen?” Grandpa Craig hooted. “And where? In the Ward? Who would approve of that?”

  Nana hushed him. Hazel wasn’t sure what they were talking about now, but she was relieved to know that people who understood things better than she did were concluding that Carol was OK. If in a whole lot of hot water with her parents.

  “I see the Lims in the shop all the time,” her father continued. “Lovely people. But they don’t join in, do they? You can’t live in a place this small and keep to your ways. People talk.”

  “People talk anyway,” said Grandpa Craig. “It’s never any good being different.” Here he looked at Alan, and Alan looked back, and the two of them stuck their tongues out at each other
and laughed. “Then again, sometimes a person can’t help it. Sometimes, if you arrive here from another planet, it’s hard to hide it, isn’t it?”

  Alan turned his mouth into what was supposed to be a threatening-looking sneer, but the only effect it had was to reduce the table to warm giggling. “I’m from Earf,” he said. “I eat all of you.”

  “Anyway,” said Emily, trying to bring one part of the conversation to a close, “Gord Drury is sure they’ll hear from her eventually. And there’s no sign that foul play was involved, so what can anyone do but wait? You know what they say about the course of true love.”

  Her father looked at her mother, and something passed between them, an adult thing that might otherwise be expressed in words.

  Once her grandparents had left and she had done her share of the cleaning up, Hazel rode her bicycle over to Gloria’s house. Dr. Whitman opened the door and gave her a warm smile. “Look who’s here,” he said. “Miss Micallef.” He shook her hand.

  “Hi Dr. Whitman.” He preferred to be called Dale, even by Gloria’s friends, but as Hazel could not bring herself to do so, he deferred to her preference and addressed her with a warm, but comical, formality. He was a tall man with a round, bald head and a salt-and-pepper moustache somewhat like Gord Drury’s, if not quite as walrussy.

  Hazel admired Gloria’s father, but he was a man of such high standing that he also intimidated her. He was confident and witty. He was handsome, although a bachelor since Gloria’s mother – his beloved Wilma – passed away from cancer. He’d vowed he would never remarry. Whenever Hazel visited them, he would clasp her shoulders and squeeze them and look into her eyes. “You are the spitting image of your mother,” he would say, and sometimes, jokingly, he’d add, “and a good thing too, since your father is nothing special to look at, am I right? Gloria! Hazel has arrived!” He ushered her in. “Come, come.”

  Gloria came prancing down the stairs. “Hazel. Hi!”

  “Hey,” Hazel said, shyly.

  “You girls up to no good again?”