Last of the Independents. Sam Wiebe
Earl Grey and stood out on the narrow wooden balcony watching the clouds douse Beckett Street and listening to Blind Willie Johnson.
The night had been uneventful. The elder Kroon had opened up around six. When I told him nothing had been disturbed, he said, “Maybe we’re done with all this awfulness.”
Ben had only been half an hour late and I was back at the office by 7:15. I could’ve gone home, walked my dog, taken my grandmother out for a scone. I could’ve gone to sleep. But I felt like doing exactly what I was doing, which was, or amounted to, nothing.
The buzzer buzzed. On the monitor Cliff Szabo climbed the stairs carrying a milk crate full of papers. I held the door for him, directed him to put the crate on the table.
“Here’s everything,” he said.
It didn’t amount to much. A comprehensive missing persons report with dental charts and a description of the boy’s clothing, the full report of the brown Ford Taurus with VIN and license number, an inventory of the car’s contents, including a photo of the repainted Schwinn Stingray. Szabo had also collected press clippings and copies of the flyers. I moved the Loeb file onto Katherine’s chair so I could spread the Szabo clippings out.
“You taught Django how to drive?” I asked him.
“I let him drive around parking lots.” He drank from a bottle of water he’d brought with him. “People are so stupid when they drive, he should start now so he doesn’t become like them.”
“Fisk seems to think he took off in the car.”
“Where would he go?”
“No idea,” I said. “Is he close to any of your relatives?”
“His mother died when he was two from an embolism.” His pronunciation slowed around the last word. “Her parents are dead. My sister lives with us. When you want to talk to her she’s there.”
We drank our beverages. The office was cool, owing to the fact that I’d left the balcony door open a crack. A car with an overdriven subwoofer passed by, hip hop trickling down toward Cordova. Saturday, September 5th. Almost seven months from the date of disappearance.
“I spoke to Fisk and I spoke to McEachern,” I said, hitting print and standing to wait for the pages to land in the LaserJet’s tray. “So far all I’ve heard is a bunch of bullshit. Which means we’re starting at square one.”
Szabo’s expression didn’t change.
“I’m going to re-interview everyone, starting with the people who saw Django that Friday. Then everyone who knew him from school. Then your neighbours. Losing McEachern’s files isn’t setting us back all that much, because I’d do this anyway.”
“Good,” Szabo said.
“We’ll make up new flyers and get them posted around the city, and if we can afford it, take out some ads. There are online groups dedicated to getting information out. Pastor Flaherty might be able to help us finagle some press coverage.”
He nodded, following me.
“I’ll also contact all the police agencies in B.C., Alberta, and Washington State, have them check any unidentified remains against the description. If you have anything with your son’s DNA —”
“The sergeant took some things of his.” Same level expression.
“If you’ve got others, keep them handy, though your own DNA will do in a pinch.”
I handed him the two pages, listing the addresses of the shops he and Django visited and the day’s itinerary up to the hour of disappearance.
“Can you think of any place you went that’s not on this list?”
Szabo unfolded a pair of flimsy reading specs and went over it. “Seems to be it.”
“If you think of anywhere else,” I said.
“I’ll tell you.”
“Good. Let’s meet every Friday for the next month or so. Anything else you think of you write down, no matter how trivial.”
“I will.”
“Last thing: Fisk said you overturned a table during your interview.”
“I was upset,” he said. “Like I told you, some —”
“— times you overreact, got it. Not anymore. From here on out you are the model of restraint. We can’t afford offending anyone else. What’s more, I need you to apologize to Fisk. I know that sucks, but we need him to pity you.”
“I don’t want anyone’s pity.”
“It’s not for you. Apologize, kiss his ass, get him to work with us.”
“All right,” he said. “I suppose I should do the same with Mr. McEachern?”
“No, fuck him,” I said, then checked myself. “No, you’re right, it would help to be on good terms with him, too.”
“All right.”
“See you next week, then.”
“All right.”
He’d reached the door when he about-faced and placed a fistful of bills and change on the table, spreading it out so I could count it. “Seventy-three dollars,” he said. “Ten percent.”
I put the music up, reused the teabag for a second pot, and worked my way through the Szabo file. Quarter past ten Katherine came in. She shed her soaked peacoat, hung her umbrella on the balcony rail, and said, “Don’t ever ask me to do that again.”
“She appreciated it. And you said you liked animals.”
“The front ends of animals, Mike. The cute, cuddly ends.”
“Least in this job, unlike, say, government service, your exposure to assholes is brief and irregular, pardon the pun.”
She looked at the overturned crate and the papers on the table. She noticed the Loeb file on her chair. “Should I file this?”
“No, it’s important it stays out.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. We’ll move it when we get back. Did your boyfriend lend you the van?”
“His mother’s minivan,” she said. “With express instructions it’s back by noon.”
“We won’t be any longer than that.”
“Damn right we won’t.”
“But we do have some stops to make,” I said.
I love Staples. It’s an irrational love, but genuine. Only book stores and the Army & Navy inspire the same level of ardour. I love the ten-dollar packages of parchment and the locked display case of ballpoint pen refills. I love the bins of cheapjack school supplies, dollar-ninety-nine plastic hole punches, thirty-nine-cent cahiers. I love the row of overpriced lockboxes and safes and the solitary Brother typewriter in the last aisle next to the ribbons and correcting tape. Every item in the store seems both necessary and frivolous, and the store itself seems aware of this paradox. The cashiers will find any justification you come up with entirely reasonable, even if you yourself don’t believe your business really requires a tri-coloured stamp set that says Welcome! in eight languages.
By the time we’d circumnavigated the store I’d bought a stack of folding chairs, two stainless steel filing cabinets, and a year’s supply of alligator clips and legal pads. Katherine had added an ergonomic keyboard and a CO2-powered dust remover. She circled back through the furniture section to re-examine a pleather-covered office chair.
“Look,” she said, using the lever to raise herself incrementally and then with one depression sink till her knees were above her waist. “We should get a matching pair.”
“Not me. I need four legs and