DAVID SLOUCHED HIS coat from his shoulders and hung it by a hook in the breezeway. A patch of sweat dampened the space between his shoulder blades, staining his white dress shirt an overcast grey. It had started out freezing that morning, but the sun broke neatly through the clouds by noon, sending forth supply lines of summer heat before the clouds regrouped and hemmed in their flanks. Such were the caprices of autumn weather in Southern Ontario: wear whatever the hell you like; at some point you’re going to be uncomfortable.
Tugging his shirt from his clammy skin, David sat on the kitchen chair and watched with bemused gratitude as supper assembled itself around him. Nancy brought plates heaped with rigatoni in meaty red sauce, while Brandon carried forks and knives in a single mass of cutlery. He wielded them like some improbable medieval weapon, parrying and thrusting before dispensing them in their proper places under a reproachful look from his mother.
“Well, look at this,” David said, pulling Brandon in for a kiss on the cheek. Brandon tolerated the paternal affection, though he scrunched his face and wiped the affected spot with the back of his wrist shortly after.
“Hi, dad.”
Nancy ran her hand from one of David’s shoulders to the other, lingering briefly over the downy hairs on the back of his neck and pinching the wad of tense muscle cresting above his collarbone.
“Jeez, this is like wood. Tough day in the salt mines?”
“Spent eight hours or so banging my head against a wall.” It was really more like twelve, if you counted the hours David spent lying awake and puzzling over the latest murders, but David didn’t want to worry Nancy unduly.
“Anything to show for it?”
“A cracked skull count?”
Nancy made a sympathetic noise and left to fetch drinks. Brandon took his place at the table, fork in hand. He stared longingly at his plate but didn’t eat. How’d I get such a well-mannered kid? David wondered. At Brandon’s age, David would have been halfway through his meal already, shrugging off his mother’s blandishments for him to slow down and hold his fork in a civilized grip. Brandon, perhaps sensing David’s contemplative gaze, looked up at his father. He really was a good-looking kid, his skin smattered with freckles and creamy with preadolescent smoothness, his limbs slender and lithe. Eyes the bright blue of glacial waters peered out from beneath a mop of sandy blond hair that would make girls swoon if he ever bothered to comb it—though the moment when this would occur to him was still a few years off. David brushed his thumb over his silver alligator ring.
“How was school?” David asked. He remembered how much he hated being asked this question as a boy, how dull and irrelevant it seemed. And now here he was asking it of his own son, startled by the realisation that he really wanted to know the answer.
Brandon shrugged his shoulders in the lax, loose-jointed manner of children. “Okay, I guess. Kinda boring.”
“Boring?! What sort of stuff are they teaching you?”
“Math, science. Spelling.”
David furrowed his brow. “You mean they haven’t taught you any skydiving yet?”
Grinning, Brandon shook his head.
“What about flamethrower class? Or maybe that’s not until high school.” David tapped his chin with his index finger. “Hun? When do they start teaching kids how to use flamethrowers?”
Nancy returned, drinks in hand. “The same day they get a very unpleasant visit from yours truly.” She set a bottle of Mad Tom in front of David, already uncapped. Beads of condensation bejewelled its slender neck. He took a long swig, letting the pleasant sting of hops crash over the root of his tongue.
They settled into a companionable silence, enjoying the meal and each other’s company. David untethered his mind from work, but the rigging snagged and he found thoughts of the case dragging behind him. He and Walter had canvassed the neighbourhood five times over, prodded every bereaved family member, cased funerals, waded hip-deep through old files on the Ballaros, spoken to every wildlife expert and criminal pathologist in the Niagara region, and their weeks of work had turned up precisely nothing.
“Everything okay, hun?”
“Hmm?” David snapped to attention. A piece of ravioli hung pierced from his fork, dangling inches above his plate. He ate it and found it cool. How long had he been holding it there?
“What’s up?” Nancy asked. “You seem far away.”
“Nothing,” said David. “Just daydreaming, I guess. Had a long day at work.”
“Was it Doctor Guts?” Brandon asked.
“What?”
“Doctor Guts. Did you catch him yet?”
“Brandon, please,” said Nancy, her fork pausing in front of her mouth. “I’m trying to eat.”
“Who’s Doctor Guts?” David asked.
“The guy who killed all those people last month. And the other guy too, at the strip club.”
Nancy set her fork down and put her head in her hands. “Who teaches him these things?”
“Pete said they call him Doctor Guts ‘cause he kills people and takes their guts. You know, for experiments and stuff.”
“What sort of experiments?” David asked.
Brandon shrugged. “You know. Just experiments. Like in a lab.”
David shook his head. “No, we haven’t caught him yet.”
“But you will, right?”
“I hope so.”
“You will.”
David ruffled Brandon’s hair. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, kid.”
“Can we change the subject, please?” pleaded Nancy. “You two may have iron stomachs, but I don’t much like to talk about doctors or guts when I’m eating. Especially not pasta in tomato sauce.”
“You just don’t appreciate sophisticated dinner conversation, do you?”
“Clearly.”
David took a bite of pasta. “How’d the showing go?”
Nancy mimed sticking a finger down her throat. “These people don’t know what they want. They tell me they’re looking for something central near Drummond Road, a place with some age and good bones. They’ll go as high as three hundred. I find them this beautiful place, solid brick, restored finishings inside, a coal room converted to a root cellar, just gorgeous. Seller wants two-sixty, I say I can probably get her down to two-forty. The couple take a five-minute walk around and turn up their noses at it. Too closed-concept, they say. Too stuffy.” Nancy threw up her hands. “They want heritage, but without the whole ‘heritage’ part.”
David’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Shi—dang,” he said, catching himself. God, overtime with Walter really drags your vocab through the gutter. “Sorry. I should take this.”
“No phones at the table,” Brandon trumpeted. He’d been blasted by that rule too many times not to call it out when he found himself on the right side of the law.
“We’ll make an exception for dad,” Nancy said.
“No fair,” groaned Brandon.
“What if it’s about Doctor Guts? You’d be sorry I didn’t answer then.”
“David, please.”
With a sheepish grin, David answered the call. “Detective Moore here.”
“Shit, baby, you all business, huh?”
Sweat prickled David’s palms. “Wanda,” he said, keeping his voice even. “What’s up?”
“You know I wouldn’t call just to tease you, Dave. I got news.”
“McCulloch?”
“He’s in town. Got a CI can place him at half a dozen spots over the past three weeks.”
“Three weeks?!”
“Yeah, believe me, I wish we had this guy years ago. He squirts positive IDs the way most junkies squirt piss. But we got what we got.”
David did some quick mental arithmetic. “What about the tenth of October?”
“Hold on, let’s see.” David heard the crisp sound of notepad pages turning. “That’s a Saturday, yeah? Uh huh, I got him at a piece of shit dive called the Copper Penny.”
“You’re sure?”
“That’s what Bugs told me. He’s good with dates.”
Bugs, thought David. Who names these people?
“I’ve got him in Toronto as early as September twenty-sixth,” Wanda went on. “My guy’s seen him off and on since then. Says there’s a few hangouts he likes, we stake one out, shouldn’t be more than a few days we can nab him. You wanna send a warrant, get a couple of our guys on it?”
“No thanks, Wanda. I’d prefer to settle this one myself.”
“It’s outta your jurisdiction. You could get yourself in a mess of nasty paperwork, you’re not careful.”
“I gotta take the risk. You got a couch I can crash on if need be?”
“Please, babe. There’s a bed for you here anytime. But you sure you don’t wanna put our boys on it?”
“Thanks, Wanda, but this one needs a personal touch.”
“Your call. When you showin’ up, tomorrow?”
“Better make it tonight. I’ll see you in a couple hours.”
“Damn, you don’t play. I’ll put the kettle on, ‘cause your ass is gonna need coffee.”
“Bless you, Wanda.”
He clicked off, his face tilted to his phone but his eyes cutting over for a glance at Nancy. He caught a glimpse of her face before she had it quite composed, her disappointment only partially paved over. “Work?” she asked.
“Work.”
“I guess it’s urgent, huh?”
“If it weren’t, I wouldn’t have even picked it up.”
“Liar,” she said, smiling to show she was only teasing, hiding her teeth to show she wasn’t.
“Can’t be helped, Nance. I’m sorry.”
“I know. Someone’s gotta do it. How long will you be gone?”
“I could even be back tonight,” he said, withholding the slimness of the odds.
“Was it about Doctor Guts?” Brandon asked, excited.
David wiped a bit of pasta sauce from the side of the boy’s mouth. He’d need a word with the CI to be sure, but given what he’d heard, McCulloch wasn’t seeming like the main attraction. “I don’t think so. But it could be one of his nurses.” Nancy rolled her eyes, a gesture Brandon failed to catch in his gape-eyed wonder.
“He’s got nurses?!”
“More than you know, kid.”