apartment building had a small foyer with metal mailboxes lined in a crooked row. A telephone and directory were positioned next to the door, but the lock was broken and she didn’t need to be buzzed in. She scanned the list of names and apartment numbers and frowned at the name next to apartment 301. She prayed the listing was a mistake.
She took the stairs rather than the claustrophobic elevator with the tarnished metal gate. A smell of stale beer and cigarettes reeked from the carpet in the hallway on the third floor. She surveyed the concrete corridor and counted six apartments. The one she was looking for was between the elevator and the garbage disposal. A faded bouquet of plastic flowers had been nailed on the door beneath the apartment number. Kala took a deep breath and lifted her hand to knock.
Disappointment coursed through her. The woman who peered out from behind the chain was not the person Kala was searching for. This woman was in late her twenties with bleached white hair springing from her head in frizzy coils and eyelashes caked in black mascara. A silk kimono with giant roses that climbed upwards from the hem wrapped around her skinny frame. The fabric gaped open above her waist to display a red bra and skin the colour of talcum powder.
“Yes?” The woman’s voice was husky from cigarettes; suspicious from living in a Centretown slum high-rise.
Kala held up her hands to appear non-threatening. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I thought my friend lived here. It’s the last address I have for her. I was hoping to get together over Christmas.”
“I moved in last month.” The woman’s stance relaxed but she kept the chain on the door. “Don’t know nothing about who lived here before me or where they’ve gone.”
“Is there anybody who might know?”
The woman screwed up her face while she thought. “The lady across the hall has been here a long time. She might know.”
“Thanks, and sorry again to have bothered you.”
Kala turned and crossed the hallway. She knocked on the door to 302 and waited. She knocked again. She didn’t hear any movement from within.
The woman from 301 called across to her. “Just remembered. She told me last week she was going away to visit her son.”
Kala turned. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“Maybe tomorrow?” It came out like a question.
“I’ll come back then,” said Kala.
She would have left the woman in 301 with a phone number to call when the neighbour arrived home, but something told her this woman would hang up if she got the police department. Kala wasn’t sure the number of the YWCA and hadn’t had time to get her cellphone number changed to local. It would be better just to follow up herself. She’d waited this long. Another day wouldn’t matter.
The lobby was quiet when Kala returned to the Y to clean up for the party. The young girl behind the desk had been replaced by a white-haired man reading the Ottawa Citizen. He looked up and smiled as she walked by but didn’t try to engage in conversation. She liked that about him.
Once inside her room, she settled in the desk chair and pulled out her cellphone. Shannon should just be arriving home from work. It would be good to hear a voice from home.
Shannon answered on the third ring. She sounded out of breath. “I just got in the door. I’m so glad you called.”
“How are things in Nipigon?” How is Jordan? Does he know I’ve left town? She could hear Shannon settling into a chair, the sound of her boots clunking onto the floor.
“It is so lonely with you gone. How’s it there?”
“Interesting. We’re a small team of five, including the sergeant Jacques Rouleau. I have a partner, Charles Whelan.”
“Really? You with a partner? Why can’t I picture that?” Shannon’s laughter bubbled across the miles.
“Hey, I can be a team player,” said Kala. “When I have to.”
“They don’t know you yet, do they, Kal?”
“Not so much. I’m still in the honeymoon stage. How’s my boy?”
“Taiku is fine. He keeps watching for you, but Doug and I have been taking turns bringing him on long walks.”
“I miss him too. I’m thinking of getting a place where I can have him live with me.”
“You should. I hate to think of you there all alone.” Shannon paused. “Jordan came by a few times. I told him you’d taken a job near Toronto. He looked about as dejected as Taiku.”
“Thanks for covering for me, Shannon. I owe you.”
“I saw Miriam shopping for groceries this afternoon. She’s getting big.”
Kala closed her eyes. Jordan would do the right thing with her gone. “I hope she has a healthy pregnancy.”
“Yeah.” said Shannon. “I still say she tricked him.”
“Jordan’s a big boy. He knew what could happen.”
“Well, there’s knowing and there’s being tricked. He hasn’t moved back in yet.”
“Give him time. They’ll work it out.”
“So what’re you doing for Christmas?”
Kala looked around the colourless, cramped room. “Not sure, but I’ll think of something. Are you and Doug having the family for dinner?”
“Yeah, just fifteen this year. I wish we would be sixteen, but maybe you’ll be home next Christmas. Call me if you need to talk. Christmas morning for sure.”
“Thanks, Shannon. I’ll let you go make supper.”
“Love you.”
“Same.”
Kala hung up the phone and stood to look out the window at the night sky, visible above buildings and the glow of streetlights. A nearly full moon hung suspended like a giant Christmas tree ornament in the darkness. She imagined Shannon and Jordan a thousand miles away looking up at the same moon. The idea gave some comfort, but not nearly enough.
8
Thursday, December 22, 7:50 p.m.
Rouleau paid for his beer at the bar and sauntered toward the main entrance. He stopped to talk along the way, always keeping one eye on the people coming into the hall. He’d dressed in charcoal-grey slacks and a black Nordic sweater. Most of the women wore party dresses but the men were on the casual side like him. The room was a hum of conversation. He calculated over three hundred officers and spouses all told. Stonechild finally walked in as they were being seated. He met her outside the cloakroom.
“I’d almost given up on you coming. I should have offered to pick you up, but it was too late by the time my old brain thought of it.”
“No problem. Sorry I’m so
