Chapter Thirty-Seven
When Dame got to City Hall, her friends’ absence seemed to manifest itself in every inch of the office. It was too cold. Too still. Her fingers on the keyboard were too loud. Worse, when she opened her email, she found a message from the last person she wanted to hear from.
Ms. Polara, it read. Please see me in my office. Tomorrow at 5 pm.
Sharon Fischer had marked the message as urgent, but Dame wasn’t really sure what the rush was. The Atkinson hearing would inevitably be cancelled and all that was left now was the avalanche of paperwork. Unless, of course — a dark thrill ran through her — there was another reason why the Fish was summoning her.
Dame took the lipstick-looking flash drive out of her pocket and turned it over in her fingers. She began pulling all the necessary files on the Atkinson, but soon, she found herself digging up everything she could, not only on the old theatre, but on the high school, the church, and the hotel. The four heritage sites listed on Fischer’s flash drive. There had to be something that linked those places.
For the better part of the morning, Dame scoured the internet and the City Hall databases for titles, contracts, insurance agreements, permits, news articles. She researched the developers that owned them — Okusha, Titun, Neos, Marinetti — and tried her best to tie them together. But in the end, it was futile. She couldn’t find the common denominator. Finally, a thought occurred to her and she dialled a number.
“January,” the voice said on the other end.
“Carol — you get anything back from the lab about Good Shepherd?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did they find any traces of polycarbonate?”
“Near the point of origin. Why? Something you want to share with the class?”
“What about the Atkinson Theatre?”
“Jesus, Dame. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. The whitecoats don’t work that fast.”
“They do when they know what they’re looking for.”
“Okay, yeah. They found polycarbonate there, too.”
“That’s three for three. Still think it’s coincidence?”
“Maybe. Polycarbonate’s in a lot of stuff.” The Fire Marshal sighed. “Look, Dame. You’ve got good instincts. And I know you’ve got some personal stake in all this, but I’m going to ask you again to leave this alone and let me do my job. I mean it. Let it go.” Carol ended the call.
If polycarbonate was batting a thousand, then whoever set the fire at Loyalist Collegiate probably set the other fires as well. And maybe not just the ones that happened this past week. Four different properties owned by four different developers. Why would one person want to burn them all down? She inserted the flash drive into the USB port of her desktop. Once again, she stared at the video file, the A and the M searing her retinas.
It had to be the missing piece of the puzzle, but there was nothing she could do to access it. Maybe Meera and Carol were right. Maybe it was time to stop pretending and let the professionals handle this.
“Dame?”
Peggy appeared at the door, carrying a mug of tea. “English Breakfast with milk and honey. Thought it might help.”
“Thank you.” Dame pulled the flash drive out of her computer and slid it into her pocket.
Peggy put the tea down on Dame’s desk. “To be honest, I’m kind of surprised you’re even here today.”
“I just figured with the Atkinson and everything” — she took the cup in her hands and blew steam off its surface — “someone better come in and mind the store.”
“Well, that’s very thoughtful” — Peggy leaned against Dame’s desk — “but God, this awful business with poor Lewis. And I heard whoever did it turned your apartment upside down. Did they take anything?”
“No, not really.”
“What were they looking for?”
The flash drive dug into Dame’s thigh. “I’m not really sure.”
“Did it have anything to do with that woman you were investigating?”
“I think maybe —” she blinked and the letters A and M flashed across the back of her eyelids “— maybe it did.”
Peggy was quiet for a moment, and then unexpectedly, she slapped the top of the desk. Tea slopped over the side of Dame’s mug. “Dammit. I warned you that something like this would happen.”
As Dame dabbed up the mess with a couple Kleenexes, Peggy took a deep breath. She seemed to regain her composure, but Dame could feel an undercurrent of anger buzzing below her words.
“I’m sorry, but all this snooping around business has never done you or your family any good. And now, it’s put your friend in the hospital.” She shook her head. “One day you’re going to have to learn that your choices don’t just affect you. They affect the people around you, too. The people you care about.”
Dame nodded.
“You know, you’re lucky your mother isn’t alive to see this. She’d be sick with worry.”
“I know.” Dame’s voice seemed small and far away.
“And, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how you’ll ever make this right with Meera.”
Dame’s guts swirled with guilt. “Did you talk to her today?”
“About an hour ago. She was very upset. They still haven’t told her what the prognosis is.” Peggy sighed. “You know, maybe it would be best if you just took the rest of the day off, okay?”
Dame could feel the tears welling in her eyes and fought them back. “Okay, Peggy.”
“Go home and get some sleep.” She stood up and gave Dame a sad smile. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll figure out a way to put this all behind you.” She turned and left the room.
Dame leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. They felt like two smouldering craters. Peggy was right. She’d made a mess of things, just like she always did. There was nothing left to do but hope tomorrow was a better day.
As the Queen car rumbled down its track, Dame leaned her head against the window. She watched the restaurants, the shops, the homes of the city rush past her. She looked at all the architecture — Romanesque, Second Empire, Edwardian — how much of it would soon be cold glass and steel? How much of it had already been lost?
She thought of the Wesley Building, a massive rendering of Neo-Gothic architecture that once served as a Methodist publishing house. When Allan Waters bought the property for his media empire in 1985, he could have demolished the place. Instead, he restored it and turned it into one of the West End’s most iconic modern landmarks: the CHUM-City Building. Why didn’t more developers follow his lead? Why did people have to raze the past when they could stand on the shoulders of giants?
When the streetcar got close to the Dufferin Street Bridge, she pulled the yellow cord. She got out, crossed the street, and looked up at the structure in front of her.
Despite its scorched bricks and crumbling terracotta, the Sainte-Marie Hotel was still impressive. For a few moments, Dame stood on the sidewalk and admired its arched windows, recessed entrances, and muscular columns. Originally, the central tower had ended in a storey-high cupola, but it had to be removed after the fire. A lot of things had been lost in that fire.
She took the narrow alley between the hotel and the pawnbroker next door, which led to the back entrance of the building. Dame had visited the old hotel a handful of times and knew just which boards to pry loose. Inside, the smell was a layered reek: fading carcinogens, urine, the slow menace of mould. Somewhere a pigeon cooed and fluttered. The afternoon sun filtered in through the ruined roof, giving the main floor the appearance of a vast atrium. The light revealed grey rubble and dusty, bright wires. To one side, the remains of an ornate steel elevator stood like a blackened birdcage.
Always, there was the evidence of recent exploration — mickey bottles, cigarette butts, fresh epithets dripping down the wall — but Dame knew better than most the dangers of these exploits. The old building was alive with decay. Once, she had put her boot through the boards before she realized the whole southwest corner of the floor had finally succumbed to rot. She’d been lucky not to fall through to the unforgiving concrete below.
In a way, the place had the quality of an old photograph, blurred around the edges. She could almost see what the Sainte-Marie might have been. The lobby over there. The bar and ballroom further along. She could see other things too, if she let herself. Things she spent most days trying to keep locked inside her head.
“You haven’t been around for a while.”
The little boy sat on the sill of a boarded-up window. One pyjama-clad leg hung over the side, swinging back and forth like the pendulum of a clock.
“I know,” Dame said. “I’m sorry.”
He lowered himself down off the window. “Did you forget about me?”
“No,” Dame said. “I didn’t forget.”
The boy surveyed the ruined interior. “Do you think my mom forgot? She never comes here, anymore. Only you.”
“I think she’s forgotten a lot of things,” Dame said, “but she hasn’t forgotten about you.”
He looked up at her. “I don’t really remember what she looks like anymore. Do you remember what your mom looked like?”
“Sometimes.” Dame wiped tears away with the back of her hand. “Not always.”
“Do you think maybe one day you’ll forget about me?”
Dame shook her head.
“Do you think one day you’ll stop coming here? Like, when you have a little kid of your own?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that why you want one so badly? So you can finally get rid of me?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you know why I’m here though, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Dame sniffed and nodded her head. “You’re here because of me.”