Cut to the Chase. Joan Boswell

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СКАЧАТЬ remained the mystery man without a surname. Nothing useful, nothing she thought might relate to Danson’s disappearance. She dropped the mail on the narrow white hall table. It too was a particleboard DIY creation, no doubt emitting toxic formaldehyde fumes.

      Her first priority was to determine if Danson had intended to be away for an extended period. The bathroom would give her a clue. Inside the white room, she opened the vanity’s door. A brown leather shaving kit, stacks of toilet paper and clean white towels occupied the space.

      An electric toothbrush and toothpaste sat beside the sink in a mug commemorating a lacrosse tournament.

      The medicine cabinet held two bottles of painkillers, a tiny bottle of wart remover, nonprescription allergy medication and a canister of Noxzema shaving cream. She opened a drawer in the vanity and found an extra tube of toothpaste, a package of unused razors and a hairbrush.

      A clean-shaven young man did not leave without his shaving kit and toiletries. He had not intended to be away overnight. Now the question was—where had he gone and why?

      She left the bathroom and moved methodically through the apartment. First, on her right, the kitchen. Four items graced the scarred Formica countertop—toaster, coffee maker, bean grinder half-full of beans and a telephone. She lifted the receiver and heard the buzz of a line. No beeps to indicate messages. Since she knew Candace had left messages, this meant Danson owned an answering machine. Because she would have required a PIN combination to access messages recorded by the phone company, she welcomed this knowledge.

      Now for a gander in the refrigerator. She found the usual array of condiments, soft drinks and beer along with some small containers of yogurt, two light caesar salad bags and greenish uncooked chicken encased in plastic wrap on a styrofoam tray. Time-dated food long past the best-before date. More confirmation that Danson had not planned to be away for long.

      In the master bedroom, two framed posters—lacrosse players in action—provided colour. The utilitarian navy-blue duvet and pillow cases, white chest of drawers, white bedside table, gooseneck lamp and clock radio were minimalist. The bed was made and the closet doors shut. Although she wasn’t familiar with Danson’s wardrobe, she peered in the cupboard and found nothing but clothes and shoes.

      On top of the bureau, Danson’s cell phone was plugged into a charger. More evidence to support her growing conviction that he had not planned a trip.

      Perhaps that explained why he hadn’t called?

      There were many locations without cell phone accessibility but few without telephone service. The high Arctic, the northern tundra—not places Danson was likely to visit.

      Would learning that Danson didn’t have his cell phone make Candace feel better, even explain why he hadn’t phoned? No way. It would give her even more reason to worry—few young men travelled far without a cell phone.

      She plucked her notebook from her shoulder bag, copied his cell phone address book and wrote down the names of those whom he’d contacted and those who had called him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a photo phone. She knew how useful they could be. Recently she’d read that many companies had outlawed cell phones, since they provided such an easy way for staff or visitors to steal confidential information.

      The second bedroom, impersonal as a motel room, epitomized austerity. If Gregory intended to establish a homey base in Toronto, he hadn’t accomplished his goal.

      She’d deal with establishing Gregory’s identity later. Danson was her priority.

      Back to the combination living room/dining room. A wall of Venetian blinds, no curtains, off-white walls. A collection of tall, healthy palms and ficus in large black self-watering pots clustered near the windows. The pristine leather furniture grouped around a small TV set on a worn chest of drawers flanked by three bookcases.

      Books revealed facets of a reader’s character. Danson had kept his college texts, along with books on kinesiology, brain patterning, psychological treatises on abnormal behaviour, books on treason, on the organization of the courts, on criminal law and more prosaic volumes on lacrosse. An interesting collection.

      A sound system, CDs, jazz and more jazz, along with black cardboard file boxes, and large photo albums filled the remaining shelves. A peek inside the boxes confirmed that Danson seldom threw anything away, as he’d saved memorabilia from his life along with outdated files and receipts. The photo albums, arranged chronologically, revealed his devotion to his family and to Angie, his murdered fiancée.

      Opposite the recreational side of the room, yet another lacrosse poster presided over the mechanics of twenty-first century living. An unpainted door resting on two beige metal file cabinets served as a desk. A laptop, printer, phone and answering machine lined up like soldiers awaiting their marching orders. The answering machine’s message light flashed.

      Hollis pressed play.

      “Your mortgage has been approved blah blah blah...” Pointless to save, but to erase would be tampering with evidence in the event there had been a crime. She pressed save and moved to the second one. “This is Boris,” a heavy Eastern European accent, one she thought that she recognized. Boris must have done a blitz on every phone number in the book. “Do not move unless you talk to Boris...”

      She stopped listening. Boris might vary his spiel, but many times before she’d received his annoying calls selling his moving company’s services.

      Number three. “It’s Monday. Where the hell are you? You’ve got a job, in case you’ve forgotten. Actually, you fucking well haven’t—you’re fired.”

      Not good news. If he’d intended to be away for an extended period, Danson would have talked to his boss.

      She moved on to the next message. “It’s Cally. Let me know if your gorgeous mother still sews her wonderful costumes. I’d like her to design one for me with no other like it in the whole wide world. Oh, and tell her we’re not in the same competitions. Call me.” Cally sounded like she drew hearts as punctuation in anything she wrote and cultivated wide-eyed innocence. Probably her stock in trade in the competitive dance world.

      Next call was a hang-up.

      Several long messages related to lacrosse and recruiting for the team. The callers, and there were three different voices, became increasingly irate when they repeated their messages and demanded that Danson return their calls. Whoever they were, they’d phoned before Candace talked to them, or they’d be aware of Danson’s absence.

      And then it was Boris again.

      No messages offered any immediately recognizable clues as to Danson’s whereabouts.

      The filing cabinet came next. The top drawer confirmed her impression that Danson was a tidy man. Financial records—paid bills, taxes, insurance, Visa and bank statements—filled the first drawer. Lacrosse schedules, contacts, equipment etc, memberships in lacrosse and alumni associations, newspaper clippings relating to lacrosse, to criminals, to the justice system, to trials—these files crowded the second drawer. Danson seemed to have recorded and saved every detail of his life.

      If a crime had been committed, the apartment would be sealed, and she wouldn’t get a second chance to burrow through his records. Hollis hoped she wouldn’t need any of this information but pulled the paper from her bag and used Danson’s printer to copy every potentially helpful file, including a chart detailing the organization of Toronto’s Russian Mafia.

      The Toronto police СКАЧАТЬ