chairs, covered her face with her hands, and cried.
“Ginny, the fire, police, ambulance, the whole response team will arrive in minutes. They’ll talk to us after they’ve been upstairs. We’ve suffered a shock. My knees feel shaky and …”
Ginny dropped her hands and raised her head. “Me too. I’m all wobbly.”
“No time for hot, sweet tea but I have orange juice and I’ll get us both a glass. The sugar will help.”
When the approaching siren screams shattered the morning calm, they gulped the juice and went to meet the police.
FOUR
Assigned the task in late April, Rhona and Ian had laboured for more than a week examining files relating to the murder or disappearance of Aboriginal women. Rhona feared they’d find evidence of negligence but none surfaced. Now, on a cool May morning the two detectives faced each another in the homicide office, which hummed with activity.
“Enough of this,” Ian said, holding up their summation. “We’re finished.”
Rhona tapped her pen on the desk and surveyed the office. “God knows everyone is busy. We need to do our bit and work on an active case.” Her phone buzzed. “Right. Ian’s here. We’ll be right in,” she said.
Ian raised an eyebrow.
“Looks like I got my wish. Frank has a case for us. Bring the report.”
When they entered his office, Frank was leaning back with his feet propped on his desk’s open bottom drawer.
“Sit down,” he said, waving a hand at the two steel- and blue-plastic chairs parked in front of him like recalcitrant students appearing before the principal.
He lowered his feet before leaning forward. “So what did you discover?” he asked.
Ian handed him the document and summarized their findings.
A slight smile cracked Frank’s lips. “Good practice for your new assignment,” he said.
Good practice — what did that mean?
“In the last twenty-four hours a perp slit a call girl’s throat. It’s your case. Not an Aboriginal, but given the fuss about sex trade workers and the accusations that the police don’t do enough …” He waved the report. “Your research may come in handy. Take a car from the pool and get over to 68 Delisle Street. The superintendent, Hollis Grant, will wait for you in her office. She found the body.”
“Did you say Hollis Grant?” Rhona said. A feeling of déjà vu swept over her. Not again. It couldn’t be Hollis Grant?
“Should I spell it? H-o-l-l-i-s G-r-a-n-t, do you know her?”
“Yes, and so do you. She was involved in the Danson Lafleur case last October.”
“The name didn’t register. Now that you mention it, I do remember. Didn’t she provide useful information?”
“She meddled, but, yes, you’re right, she helped.”
“Well, maybe she’ll do it again,” the chief said.
Rhona hoped Hollis would not play any part in the investigation.
“We don’t want the mayor, the papers, or any of the city’s do-gooders making an issue of the case. Do I make myself clear?” Frank said.
“Perfectly. We’re on our way,” Rhona said.
Outside the chief’s office, Ian muttered, “If I remember correctly, she was a pain in the ass.”
“She was, but without her leads the case could have turned out much worse. She’s a loose cannon and I hope her only involvement is finding the victim,” Rhona said.
At 68 Delisle, Hollis had left Ginny in her office and dealt with the initial onslaught of emergency responders arriving in the lobby. The police, once they knew what had happened, requested that residents arriving or leaving wait there for an interview. The lobby rapidly filled with tenants, along with the crew working on the exterior repairs to the balconies, who used the opportunity to flop on the grey marble floor and chow down on whatever food remained in their lunch buckets.
Hollis circled the area and briefly spoke to those she knew before nipping into her apartment, leashing Barlow and returning to the office with the puppy. She dug out the dog biscuits she kept in her desk drawer.
“Help me practice his dog training homework?” she said to Ginny, who was huddled on the visitor’s chair gripping her second glass of orange juice and staring into space.
Ginny frowned. “How can you talk about dog training when Sabrina’s been murdered?” she asked. “All I can think about is what we saw up there.”
“Me too, but practising the exercises with Barlow will distract us,” Hollis said.
Hearing his name, Barlow squeezed close to Hollis, waiting for her to scratch his bony back. Instead, she stood and fished a treat from her pocket, which energized the dog and focused his attention. Barlow performed sit and down with no problems, but when Hollis ordered him down and then told him to stay, he refused to co-operate, repeatedly leaping to his feet and lunging for the treat.
Hollis, for the fifth time, held her hand aloft and again commanded the dog to stay. With eyes locked on the puppy, she backed toward the door. A voice behind her said. “A puppy and a new job as apartment super. You’ve been busy since I saw you last.”
It couldn’t be. Hollis dropped her hand and turned. Barlow, tail wagging like a metronome on speed, leapt toward Rhona Simpson, who stepped back and crashed into Ian.
“Rhona Simpson. I can’t believe it,” Hollis said. She grabbed the puppy’s blue collar with her left hand and held out her right to Rhona.
Rhona, her equilibrium restored, shook the proffered hand. “You remember my partner, Detective Gilchrist?”
Hollis acknowledged Ian and waved her free hand toward Ginny. “This is Ginny Wuttenee. Sabrina Trepanier was sleeping in her spare room when she was murdered.”
“What a shock you’ve had,” Rhona said to Ginny.
Ginny, wide-eyed, said nothing.
“There’s a crowd up there already,” Hollis said.
“And the coroner is on his way along with the rest of our team. Tell me about the victim.”
“Let me put this monster back in my apartment. It’s right across the hall.”
With the reluctant puppy stuffed away, Hollis moved to the cabinet and removed Fatima Nesrallah’s file.
“The murdered woman, Sabrina Trepanier, was staying in Ginny’s apartment, 504, while her own living room was painted. Sabrina was allergic to paint. All the apartments on the fifth are owned by one woman. I don’t have individual renters’ files.” She passed Fatima’s file to Rhona.
Rhona
