THE COFFEE MACHINE stared back at me with a blank expression on its display. No lights, no nothing. I sighed, wondering how much money a new machine would cost, and whether it was worthwhile to find someone to repair the unit. Did people repair espresso machines?
I had about a half-dozen other ways of getting caffeine into my blood, but this was just another thing to replace. I reached up and pulled the French press out of the cupboard. Hopefully, the kettle still worked.
It had been a rough night. I hit inspiration around 3:00 a.m., while watching a movie. I was fading in and out during a Gérard Depardieu film. He was a soldier or something. And then I was bolt upright, and painting on an easel in front of the TV. Normally I painted upstairs in the studio, but I’d brought an easel down when the Leafs made the playoffs. I’m not normally a hockey guy, but I’ll watch Toronto play. I painted a very exciting abstract while I watched the game. They lost. The painting is still there. It looks a little angry.
The easel stayed in the living room for a couple of weeks, then a couple of months. Now, the living room was cluttered with paintings, and I was burnt out.
I needed coffee, pronto.
Water boiled, the coffee was steeping, or whatever it was coffee did in a Bodum. I went into the bathroom and washed my face. I was just heading back to the kitchen, drying my hair with a towel, and saw a woman’s face peeking in through the window.
Here’s the thing: I’m on the second floor of the house, and my kitchen window looks out over a stairway leading up from the driveway. It’s not a normal occurrence to have someone’s face in the window. Part of me wanted to shriek and run away. The other part of me wanted to pull the blinds down and have a cup of coffee. Instead of doing either thing, I draped the towel around my neck and pointed her to the apartment door.
She looked out of place. Any additional person looked out of place here, especially a woman. She was about fifty, and she was dressed like an office executive. I knew the type. I’d worked in an office before.
“You’re here to serve me papers or something?” I asked. She shook her head. “Or, I’ve been making too much noise?”
“Mr. Virtue?”
“That depends.”
“You’re the detective?”
I sighed. “I suppose. What can I do for you?”
“Maybe put a shirt on? And some pants?”
I shrugged and told her to have a seat. I went and found a shirt. And some pants.
I returned to the kitchen and started pouring coffee. I poured two cups and went looking for her. She examined the paintings in the drawing room, including the one I worked on last night.
“These are some nice paintings,” she said.
“They’re for sale,” I said.
“This one here is interesting.” She gestured at the one on the easel. “It’s very—”
“—Wet. It’s very wet. Please don’t touch it.”
“Sorry. I was going to say it’s got a real Group of Seven vibe to it.”
I looked at the painting. It wasn’t at all how I meant it to vibe. I said thanks and offered her a coffee.
“Do you want cream or anything?”
“Black is good.”
I smiled. “That’s the proper way to drink it.” I stopped smiling. “What can I do for you? You’re not here for a painting, that’s for sure.”
“Mr. Virtue, I’m …” She paused, clutching the novelty coffee mug tightly. She was definitely out of sorts. My impression of her was a high-powered executive, always in control. Now, she found herself compromised, unable to find a rational solution to her problems. Instead of solving the problem herself, she was in my drawing room, burning her hands on a coffee cup which asked her to “Blow me, I’m hot.”
“Let’s start with your name.”
“I’m Gail Waterman.”
“Hi Gail, I’m Zack. What can I do for you?”
“It’s my daughter. She’s missing.”
“That sounds like a job for the police.”
“They think I should wait a little while.”
“I would think they’d jump on it with an Amber Alert or something.”
“She’s seventeen. She’s got a history of—”
“Running away?”
“Delinquency. She didn’t come home two nights ago.”
“Two nights ago? Is she often late in coming home?”
She looked at her coffee. “Yes. But two days is unusual. We’d had a fight, and it was the last straw. She had to be home this morning in order to …”
“To what?”
“We made an appointment for her to see a therapist.”
I made that kind of face where I didn’t seem surprised by the events.
“I think I know my daughter, Mr. Virtue.”
“Call me Zack. No one calls me Virtue.” This was a lie.
“Look … Zack. I know my Molly. She hangs out with a rough crowd, but she’s still a kid. She knew this was important to me, and there’s no way that she would have missed this appointment.”
I raised my hands. While my hand was raised, I drank some coffee.
She wandered the room and turned to face me. “I read an article about you in The Record. About how you risked your life to save the girl at the art gallery.”
My mood suddenly darkened. I shrugged. “Which one? I’ve saved lots of girls in galleries.”
“You got shot.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much. I get shot a lot. I think I might be a magnet for bullets.”
She gave me a pleading look. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I’m usually prepared for everything.” She took a sip of her coffee. “This is good.”
“Thanks. My regular coffee maker broke.” I sighed. Money was tight. I wasn’t about to make this woman’s case contingent on whether I could afford a coffee maker.
“I’ll pay you. My husband and I are very well off.”
“Money’s a little tight. But it’s not that tight.”
“I could buy some art. Maybe you could afford to buy some new jeans.”
I looked at my torn jeans and pulled at the hem of my rock T-shirt. This was a curated look. How did she not see that?
“Look, I’m a VP for one of the biggest tech companies in Waterloo. My husband is the CEO of an international logistics and warehousing software company in Kitchener. We have money.”
“I’m not interested in money, obviously,” I said, gesturing at everything. “And I don’t want to get involved in anything the police are, or should be, working on.” I saw her expression drop and had to excuse myself.
I went to the kitchen and poured my coffee in the sink, instantly regretting it. The lack of sleep had given me a headache.
Was I being so unreasonable? Did I want to get involved in a missing persons case? Shouldn’t the police be working on this kind of thing?
Why did she have to bring up the art gallery business? The answer was obvious: that’s how people knew me. The artist who took a bullet for someone.
I walked back into the drawing room to see Gail holding one of my paintings.
“Look, Gail,” I began, “after considering your case, I’ve determined I can’t take your money.”
“Mr. Virtue, I’d like to buy your painting.”
“Oh, well, maybe I can take your money.”
“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars for this piece.”
My eyes widened, and my jaw may have dropped. I’d be a terrible poker player. The painting was a nice, but minor work. I wasn’t very proud of it. It was a 24 by 36 inch abstract with a lot of blue in it. More blue than it deserved.
“The price on that painting is only $2500.”
“I’ll pay you four times that much if you’ll only help me out. I just need some kind of closure.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
She looked at the painting. I got the feeling she was judging it; that it was the least offensive painting in the room. “I know my daughter, Mr. Virtue. I know that she’s trouble. But I also know you’re a good person.”
“It’s cause of my last name.”
“I know you’ll find the truth, no matter what.”
I winced. “Fine. I’ll find your daughter. I mean, I’ll try.”
She brightened a little. “Thank you!”
“A couple of caveats here: the moment the police take the case, I’m out. I can’t run a parallel investigation.”
She nodded. “They don’t seem interested, anyway.”
“They will be. They’ll be all over this. Especially if she is … you know. I’ll probably have to bring them in at some point.”
Another nod.
“And I’m going to need to get some information about her. Molly. Like, does she have a cell phone? I mean, probably, right?”
“Yes. But it’s off.”
“Are you tracking her?”
She answered sheepishly. “Yes. The last known location is the bus terminal downtown.”
“Okay, that’s a start. I’ll reach out to my contacts and start looking for her immediately.”
“I love my daughter, Mr. Virtue. I really do. Please find her.”
“I’ll get her back.”