“Francy?” I was being silly, seeing as there were only two rooms in the cabin and she was obviously not there. I realized then that the front door had been open, and I distinctly remember locking it when I left. Becker came in.
“Gone?” he said.
“Maybe she went for a pee,” I said. “Theres an outhouse.” I dashed outside, calling her name. No light from the privy, no light anywhere. The sunset was over, the sky was overcast and the trees surrounding the cabin blocked out what little glow was left in the sky. I went back inside. Becker was reading the note I’d left on the table. The sandwiches were gone.
He handed me the note and stared into my face, waiting for me to take the blame. He looked really, really pissed off. On the bottom of my note was a scribble from Francy.
“We’ll be fine. Thanks,” it said.
“Shit,” I said.
“That all you can say? Shit?” Becker said. “Where do you think she’s gone? Out there? It’s cold, dark. She has a baby with her.”
“I don’t know. Why are you asking me?”
“I’m asking you because you are plainly trying to engineer this situation.”
“Me? Why would I do that?”
“Damned if I know. Maybe you’re a control freak.”
“A control freak? Me? Geez, Detective Becker, are you ever a poor judge of character. I can’t even control my bladder,” I said. He would not be put off by lighthearted quips.
“If I find that you’ve arranged it so that she’s just hiding out there in the bush until I go away, I will personally charge you with obstruction of the law and haul your ass into jail,” he said.
“Are you threatening me, Becker?”
“Yes, Goddamn it, I’m threatening you, Polly, you infuriating little… Deacon.” We had been yelling. He stopped and we stared at each other for a tiny, electric moment and then fell apart laughing. Big laughs. The kind you only get once every few years. The more we laughed, the more we laughed, if you know what I mean. We’d stop, get it under control, and then catch each other’s eye and start snickering and then be laughing again. It was like a cool shower on a blistering day. It was wonderful.
When we finally pulled ourselves together, the air had changed, as it does after a good thunderstorm. I was thinking more clearly and maybe he was too.
“Hey, look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not being very fair. To be honest, this is my first homicide and I’m trying to do things right. You are, according to the book, a hostile witness, and hostile witnesses aren’t supposed to be so… well, never mind. Forget what I said.”
“You mean you’re not going to haul my ass into jail?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yup. You did.”
“Huh. How level-headed of me,” he said. “No, ma’am. No jail. But I would appreciate it if you’d be straight with me.”
“I have been straight with you,” I said. Well. Sort of.
“Why the big secret about where you live?”
“Oh, that. Well, I’m not supposed to be here. Zoning. Taxes.”
“Polly, I’m investigating a murder.”
“I know, but still.”
“What about running out on us at the Travers’ place? None of this would’ve happened if you’d just stayed put in the cruiser.”
“I don’t like staying put.”
“Obviously. What about taking off with Mrs. Travers from the Schreier’s?”
“Would you have stayed there? Really?”
He didn’t answer.
“Look, everything that happened today has been for Francy’s sake,” I said. “Her husband, who has abused her for years, goes berserk and her young friend Eddie beans him with a wrench. They get out of there and the next thing she knows I’m telling her he’s dead. Of course she’s running. I’d run too. You guys, you cops in uniforms, don’t have the best track record when it comes to domestic violence. She was scared. I was helping her. End of story.”
“But it’s not the end of the story. You didn’t arrange this little I-don’t-know-where-she-is act? She’s not out there hiding in the underbrush?”
“I left her sleeping off the horror, Detective.”
“Swear?”
“Look, if I had a Bible, I’d take an oath right here, except that it wouldn’t mean anything anyway. I could swear on Gray’s Anatomy, if you like.” I lifted the heavy book from the work-table where I’d been checking out the musculature of the human arm, prior to modelling a limb for the latest puppet.
He glanced around, seeing the chaos of my living space for the first time.
“What do you do up here, anyway?” he said.
“I’m a puppet maker.”
“Not much call for that in these parts, is there?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. I get an order every so often from the local municipal government looking for mayors. School boards looking for trustees. Police departments looking for chiefs. I keep busy.”
“Very funny,” he said. “Next time you make a police chief, call me. I’ll soften up the stuffing for you.”
“I’ll do that.”
“So, I’d better get going,” he said. “I’ll check her house again. She wouldn’t be off lost in the bush somewhere, would she? Maybe we should get together a search team.”
“Nah. She wouldn’t have left without someplace to go. She’s got Beth. Maybe she went back to the Schreiers.”
“Would you go back there, if you were her?”
“I’d rather stick a needle in my eye,” I said.
“Nice image. You’ll let me know if she shows up.” It was a statement, not a request. “You got a phone?”
“Nope.”
“Are you one of those anti-technology people?”
“Not really. I’m just poor.”
“Oh. So, send me a smoke signal if you hear anything, okay?” He gave me his card which read: Detective Constable Mark Becker, Ontario Provincial Police, Laingford Detachment.
“She can’t keep running forever,” Becker said. “She got relatives around here?”
“Not
