Number three. “It’s Monday. Where the hell are you? You’ve got a job, in case you’ve forgotten. Actually, you fucking well haven’t—you’re fired.”
Not good news. If he’d intended to be away for an extended period, Danson would have talked to his boss.
She moved on to the next message. “It’s Cally. Let me know if your gorgeous mother still sews her wonderful costumes. I’d like her to design one for me with no other like it in the whole wide world. Oh, and tell her we’re not in the same competitions. Call me.” Cally sounded like she drew hearts as punctuation in anything she wrote and cultivated wide-eyed innocence. Probably her stock in trade in the competitive dance world.
Next call was a hang-up.
Several long messages related to lacrosse and recruiting for the team. The callers, and there were three different voices, became increasingly irate when they repeated their messages and demanded that Danson return their calls. Whoever they were, they’d phoned before Candace talked to them, or they’d be aware of Danson’s absence.
And then it was Boris again.
No messages offered any immediately recognizable clues as to Danson’s whereabouts.
The filing cabinet came next. The top drawer confirmed her impression that Danson was a tidy man. Financial records—paid bills, taxes, insurance, Visa and bank statements—filled the first drawer. Lacrosse schedules, contacts, equipment etc, memberships in lacrosse and alumni associations, newspaper clippings relating to lacrosse, to criminals, to the justice system, to trials—these files crowded the second drawer. Danson seemed to have recorded and saved every detail of his life.
If a crime had been committed, the apartment would be sealed, and she wouldn’t get a second chance to burrow through his records. Hollis hoped she wouldn’t need any of this information but pulled the paper from her bag and used Danson’s printer to copy every potentially helpful file, including a chart detailing the organization of Toronto’s Russian Mafia.
The Toronto police would do a thorough job. She’d had firsthand experience and knew how effective they were. Sometimes an unprofessional mind thought differently, approached problems in a different way. That would be her role.
Copy, copy, copy—it took forever; almost all her paper, and the printer alerted her that the ink cartridge must be replaced. Once done she carefully replaced the files and opened the laptop. If she needed a password, she would be out of luck. No one in her circle of friends used passwords for their personal computers, but given his campaign to round up criminals, Danson might. She flicked it on.
The intercom sounded. Candace and Elizabeth had arrived.
Hollis buzzed them through the downstairs door and stepped out in the hall to wait for them to climb the stairs.
“Touchdown. Mission accomplished. We have shoes,” Candace called.
“Hi, Howis,” Elizabeth said.
Inside the apartment’s living room, Candace donned the gloves Hollis offered. Elizabeth watched and held up her hands.
“No gloves for you. They’re too big. They’re for Hollis and me,” Candace said.
Elizabeth’s lower lip quivered.
“You can watch TV,” Candace said to the little girl, who immediately plunked herself down in front of the television.
Elizabeth held up her foot for Hollis’s inspection. “See,” she said displaying a pink running shoe with Velcro fasteners. “New.”
“They’re gorgeous. What a lucky girl you are,” Hollis said.
Elizabeth ripped the Velcro tab to undo the shoe. She gripped the heel, yanked the shoe off and held it up to Hollis, who accepted the gift, admired it, and handed it back.
Elizabeth struggled to push it on, so Hollis bent down to help her. “Was it hard to track them down?” she said to Candace peering over the little girl’s shoulder.
Candace smiled ruefully and ran both her hands through her neat bob. Hollis admired the way the hair dropped into place, the mark of great hair and a terrific cut.
“Hard enough. Three stores, two temper tantrums—then success. Coping with toddlers is not for the faint-hearted.” She picked up the remote and flicked on the TV.
Elizabeth ignored it. Instead she peered up at Candace. “Danson?” she said. Her nose wrinkled, and her tiny, almost invisible eyebrows drew together in a frown.
“Not here, sweetie,” Candace said.
Elizabeth glowered. “Lizabet want Danson,” she said.
“I know you do. But not now. Elizabeth, this is one of your favourite shows—it’s Curious George.”
Diverted, the little girl settled to watch the monkey’s cartoon antics.
Candace moved closer to Hollis. “Well, what did you find?”
“Danson’s car, wallet and keys are gone, but he left his cell phone, toothbrush, and shaving stuff. He must have expected to return quickly from wherever he went.” Hollis didn’t want to look at Candace, to witness the devastation as the ramifications of this information hit home.
“He doesn’t go anywhere without his cell.” A long silence grew heavier by the minute. “This is bad news, isn’t it?” Candace said.
No use denying it. “I think you should contact Missing Persons,” Hollis said gently. “If you like, I can phone Rhona Simpson, a homicide detective I know, and ask her advice.”
Candace shuddered. “Please. Do it immediately. I have to know that Danson isn’t the unidentified man in the morgue.”
Five
Late that October Saturday afternoon, Rhona Simpson hunkered down at her desk. She, along with an ever-growing pool of detectives, had been assigned to unearth the killer or killers preying on men in the downtown area. The killings had begun six weeks earlier. The police weren’t any closer to solving the crimes than they had been on day one.
Six murdered men, five identified thus far, all stabbed with a long, thin blade. One unidentified—his face pulverized and his fingertips chopped off. No one had reporting a missing loved one, at least not a man with physical characteristics that corresponded to the mystery man’s. A gangland execution—but which gang and why?
Rhona repositioned the elastic scrunchy anchoring her dark hair away from her face and covertly studied the partner assigned to her.
Ian Galbraith, the newest detective in homicide, zealously applied a yellow highlighter to the document in front of him. There wouldn’t be much unmarked when he finished. Single-mindedness characterized his attitude. Like most new boys, he was determined to prove himself.
Physically, blazingly blue eyes, fair skin and black hair falling in his eyes marked him as a man with a Gaelic heritage matching his name. Tall, thin and intense, he’d launched himself into the investigation as if his position depended on it, and maybe it did.
“What are you staring at?” Ian said.
“Sorry, I do that when I’m thinking,” Rhona said.
“I’m relieved. I thought I must have left half my lunch on my face,” Ian said with a small smile that revealed perfect teeth and a dimple. He returned to scrutinizing the document.
They’d spent the morning on the street, interviewing women and men on the stroll and searching for fresh clues to identify the killer. Hours later, they were cross-indexing information from the murdered men’s files, seeking a revealing, overlooked detail. For the last few minutes, they’d been reviewing information, searching for similarities in lifestyle, hangouts, diet, habits, medical conditions—factoids that linked the victims