Wednesday, May 25

She’d successfully avoided visiting the offices of the Westmuir Record for almost twenty years. The last time she’d been through those doors had been to check the proof of her father’s obituary in person. She hadn’t wanted such a thing faxed, and her mother was so sick with grief she couldn’t do the job herself. Back then, at the end of the eighties, the editor had been an inoffensive old man named Harvey Checker. His Record had been the classic country newspaper, with jam recipes and pictures of kids dressed up in period costumes for the Sunny Days Parade. None of this “real” reporting that Sunderland liked to dream up. When Sunderland had taken over in 1997, he’d changed the paper’s motto from “Eggs, Coffee, and The Record: a Perfect Westmuir Morning” to “On The Record for All of Westmuir.”

The paper was housed in an old tool and die factory at the top of Main Street; it was one of the first businesses you saw after crossing the bridge over the Kilmartin River. Hazel and Wingate went in and asked for Sunderland, but after a five-minute wait, a young woman with short black hair came out and offered her hand. “I’m Becca Portman,” she said. “Mr. Sunderland isn’t available.” She looked back and forth between the two officers, smiling mildly.

“Did he see me standing in his lobby?” asked Hazel.

“Actually, no. He’s in Atlanta this week for a conference.” Hazel mentally added Sunderland to her list of the unaccounted-for. After all, it was in his newspaper that the short story was appearing. And he was no fan of hers. Although it was hard to credit how what was happening had anything to do with her. Portman leaned toward her and said, with a hint of embarrassment, “‘Reupping Small Market Ads: Supersize Your Customers, Supersize Your Revenues.’ It’s sorta gay, I know, but this is a business.”

“And what are you?”

“I’m the managing editor. And for three issues, I’m the interim publisher, which is, honestly, so…”

“Awesome,” said Hazel.

“Yeah.”

Wingate took her hand and shook it. “It’s good to meet you. Do you have an office?”

She did; it was Sunderland ’s office. She led them to it and closed the door. There were pictures of Sunderland on the walls with celebrities who wouldn’t be recognized twenty kilometres south of Port Dundas. Wingate put a picture of the severed hand on her desk. Portman covered her mouth with her hand. “Wow,” she said. “That’s kinda gross, isn’t it?”

“Does Gord Sunderland know it’s my birthday tomorrow?”

Becca Portman narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think so. But happy birthday?”

“Someone sent that to me in a wrapped box.” She took her notebook out of her hip pocket and removed a Polaroid picture. She held it out to Portman. “And this was found in Gannon Lake on Friday. You’re running a story that features a body in a lake.” Portman was looking at the picture. “Can you get your boss on the phone?”

“I’m sorry, but what does that nasty hand have to do with this mannequin? Or the story?”

“There are aspects of our investigation we can’t discuss right now, Miss Portman,” said Wingate. “But you can trust me: it’s connected.”

“So,” said Hazel, “your boss?”

“All I have is a hotel number, I’m afraid.” She handed back the picture. “Mr. Sunderland told me to hold down the ship.”

“The ship?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Miss Portman,” said Wingate, “can you show us the next chapter of the story you’re running?”

“No,” she said, blithely. “I can’t.”

“We’re not rabid fans,” said Hazel, “who can’t wait until tomorrow morning. We’re police officers.”

“The problem is, we don’t have it yet,” said Portman.

“Don’t you have to go to press?” asked Wingate.

“Tonight.” She looked at her watch, as if the evening could creep up on her without her noticing. “Mr. Eldwin’s giving us the chapters one at a time now.”

“So when are you expecting him?”

“Expecting him?”

“You have a poor grip of English for a woman who works at a newspaper,” said Hazel. “Expecting, anticipating, looking forward to his presence.”

She looked at Hazel queerly. “I’m not expecting him,” she said. “He sends the chapters in by email.”

“Fucking technology is going to be the death of policework, I tell you.”

Wingate brought her attention around to him again. “From where, Miss Portman? Where is he emailing from?”

“Um? His computer?”

Wingate looked at Hazel. Hazel said, “Can we see the last email he sent?”

Now she was happy to help. “Sure,” she said, and she leaned over Sunderland ’s desk and brought up her email, turning the screen to them. Hazel went behind the desk, gently pushing Portman out of the way, and sat in Sunderland ’s chair, turning the screen back to herself. There were dozens of emails still in the inbox. Two were from Colin Eldwin, and she opened the one that was from this past Saturday afternoon. It said, simply, “Hi Becca, I’ve had a couple of new ideas for the story, so toss what I sent on Thursday, okay? Here’s chapter three for Monday – I’ll get this Thursday’s to you asap. Thanks! CE.”

She opened the first email. It was dated Thursday, May 12. “First two chapters,” it read. “More in a week. CE.” Both emails were sent from Eldwin’s email address, [email protected].

“Where are the original third and fourth chapters Eldwin sent?”

“I trashed them. Always respect the writer’s wishes.” Hazel thought, Editorial Relationships, second year.

“Did you read them?”

“Yeah.”

“And why do you think he wanted to rewrite them?”

Portman shrugged, an all-encompassing shrug of total incompetence. “I guess he wasn’t happy.”

“What were they about? What happened in them?”

“Oh gosh,” she said, searching the ceiling. “Let’s see, they drag that poor girl into the boat and Gus throws up some more, and then they take it to the police and it turns out it’s some girl that’s been missing for months and the police, like, they hold Dale and Gus, but they’re innocent and they let them go. But Dale has a bad feeling.”

“A bad feeling. What kind of bad feeling?”

“I think that’s where the fourth chapter ended. I can understand why Mr. Eldwin wanted to revise. It was a little too on-the-nose for a mystery story. I like what he’s doing with it now.”

“Do you?”

“Oh yeah, it’s goosebump stuff, don’t you think?”

Hazel stared at the girl for a moment, lost for anything to say, and then she returned her attention to the computer screen and scrolled down the inbox. There were emails from Sunderland, from other columnists and writers, from advertisers. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. She went back to the Eldwin emails. “I want copies of these,” she said. “You have a computer person here?”

“I’m a computer person,” said Portman. “What do you need?”

“I just told you what I need.”

Wingate stepped forward. “If you could just make us printouts of the emails, with full headers, that’d probably do for now.”

“Hey, no problem,” said Portman, and she flounced behind the desk. Hazel got up and stood in the window, trying to control the urge to smack the girl. Portman disconnected the computer from a scanner, then unplugged the scanner and plugged in a printer, connected the USB cable from the printer to the computer and tried to print the two emails. “Whoops,” she said, “wrong cable. Hold on.” She fiddled for a couple of minutes, failed to find the problem, smiled emptily at Wingate, and called in an associate, a gangly guy with a mass of uncombed hair and a worried expression on his face. He fiddled with the cables for a couple of minutes before plugging the printer into the right sockets.

“Okay Mizz Portman, that should, that should do ’er.” He almost hit the doorframe on the way out.

“He has a crush on me,” said Portman.

“Well, you’re adorable, aren’t you?” said Hazel.

“Thank you,” she said.

“And you run a tight fort,” she added.

“Well, there you go,” said Portman, handing Wingate the printouts. “Let me know if I can be of any more help.”

She hop-skipped to the office door and opened it for them, relieved to have the visit over and done with. Hazel stopped halfway out. “One more thing, Mizz Portman.” The young woman waited behind the officers, a benign smile on her face. “Regardless of when the next chapter comes in, don’t print it.”

“Sorry?”

“You heard me. I don’t want you to publish another word of this story unless you have permission, personally, from me.”

She looked to Wingate, hoping for a sign that Detective Inspector Micallef was joking. But she found no assurance in his eyes. “Well, I can’t do that,” she said. “I mean, I can send you the story as soon as we get it, but our readers are expecting -”

Hazel took a step back into the office, and Portman quickly retreated. “What your readers are expecting is seven interesting things to do with celery and cream cheese. But if you run any more of this story without my permission, you’ll be directly interfering with an open police investigation. Do you want to do that?”

“I, I’d have to ask Mr. Sunderland for permission to -” She stopped talking, staring at Hazel’s eyes. “If it’s that serious…”

“If I even see a mention of ‘The Mystery of Bass Lake’ in tomorrow’s paper, I’m coming back here, alone. And your office crush won’t be any use to you if things go wrong in here again. You understand?”

“I understand,” she said, making violent little metronomic nods with her whole face. “No story Thursday.”

Hazel offered her hand, and the girl took it immediately. “Nice talking to you,” she said.

Wingate walked with his hands in his pockets, his face pointed straight up the sidewalk. “What?” she said.

“You ever heard the saying that you catch more flies with honey?”

“Are you going to turn into my mother now, James?”

“No.”

“Because one is too many.”

“It’s not Rebecca Portman’s fault she works for a man you hate. That’s all I’m saying.”

“You’re the one who called her a fly.”

“It’s your call.”

“You’re right,” she said. “It is my call.” She looked at her watch. “I don’t think we can wait any longer to get news from Claire Eldwin. We better go up and see her. You call and make sure she’s there, but don’t tell her why we’re coming.”

He got out his cell and dialled. There was no answer. “I’ll keep trying her,” he said.

They turned down Porter Street and headed for the front doors of the station house. She walked into the detachment with her head down and went straight to PC Eileen Bail. “Tell me the web sequence now shows a map to where that guy is being held.”

“Not quite.”

“Not quite?”

“It just happened,” said Bail. She turned the screen to Hazel and Wingate. It was a solid dark frame now. But something was shuddering. The camera was pulling back slowly.

“What is it?”

“Blood,” said Bail. “It’s blood, I think.”

The zoom out took a full two minutes, revealing a number of shapes as it went. When the image was revealed, it was seven letters about fifteen inches high, and they spelled out the words SAVE HER. The letters were slowly flowing down the wall. They watched the image repeat a number of times. Hazel felt sick to her stomach. “Are you sure it’s blood?”

“I don’t want it to be,” said Bail. She waved Sergeant Renald over. He was a trained SOCO officer. “What do you think?”

He stared at the display. “‘Save’ who?” he asked.

“Tell us if you think it’s blood,” said Wingate.

Renald put his face close up to the screen. “The top edges are hardening as the fluid is washing down,” he said. “See the darkening line at the top of that round shape?”

“Paint would do that,” said Hazel.

“Paint dries,” said Renald. “Blood clots. Look at the lumps forming.”

She wanted to puke. “Jesus Christ.” There was a whirring, tinny noise coming from somewhere, and she turned her head to listen to the speakers built into the computer, but the sound wasn’t coming from the video.

“So, ‘save’ who?” Renald repeated.

She pulled her head away from the computer but she still saw the letters bleeding down the wall in a basement somewhere. “That’s it,” she said, talking to the room. “I’m getting heartily sick of being the dog wagged by the tail. I want control, people – let’s everyone get working on what’s happening here. This town can go without parking tickets for a while until we figure this out.”

Bail said, “I don’t think any of us know where to start.”

“Begin by thinking it through. By the end of the day, I want one good idea from each of you… does everyone… what the hell is that sound?”

The irregular, metallic noise was coming from somewhere behind her. Without another word, she pushed into the back of the pen and went in the direction of the sound. It wasn’t a fan, it was too loose, too rattly. No one stopped her as she made her way to the coffee station behind Windemere’s desk. There, beside the creamers sitting in their little plastic tub of ice, in a cage, and spinning a tiny exercise wheel at top speed, was the mouse that had popped out of the box. There was a small black scab on its lower lip. Its fur had faded to pale pink. Windemere was standing beside her. “We named him Mason,” she said. “We gave him a bath, which he didn’t much like. But he’s a lot better now.”

Wingate was standing beside her. “Do you think someone is asking us to raise the dead?” he asked.

She put her hand into her pants pocket and pushed past the little pill-shaped ball of tinfoil between her thumb and finger to her car keys. She passed them to Wingate. “Go see Claire Eldwin. Right now.”

“On my own?”

“On your own. And come back with some answers.”