LITMIR.BIZ

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      She dropped the newspaper on the round cedar picnic table, retrieved a sling-back canvas deck chair from the garage, unfolded it and prepared to relax for an hour and think of anything but painting or Candace. As she sorted through the sections, deciding which to read first, MacTee, after rolling ecstatically on the leaf-covered grass, flopped down, groaned with pleasure and stretched out in the sparse shade of a maple almost devoid of leaves.

      The ground floor door banged open.

      Hollis, halfway through reading editorial speculations about an unidentified mutilated murdered man and his possible connection to the murders of male drug users in the downtown core, lifted her head. Candace emerged, leading two-year-old Elizabeth and carrying newspaper and coffee mug.

      “Good morning. Hope you don’t mind company,” she said, releasing the toddler’s hand. She spoke in a flat tone.

      Whatever had been bothering Candace was still affecting her. She’d been tense and nervous each time Hollis had spoken to her during the week. She wasn’t likely to be very good company, and certainly she looked anything but peaceful. What could Hollis say? The yard belonged to Candace who allowed Hollis and MacTee to use it.

      Elizabeth, wispy blonde curls escaping from her pink baseball cap, chortled when she spied the dog. Clad in overalls and a pink windbreaker, she toddled toward him shouting, “Tee, Tee, Tee.”

      MacTee adored children and tolerated their unintended abuse. He always allowed Elizabeth to catch him, grab great handfuls of hair and hug him. When she opened her mouth and bore down on his nose, he shrugged her off and moved away. She’d follow and repeatedly throw herself on him as they continued the game they both enjoyed.

      Eyes bleak, mouth set in a straight line, shoulders slumped, Candace radiated distress.

      Maybe Hollis would finally root out the cause of her friend’s unhappiness.

      “Always glad to see you and Elizabeth. Aren’t we lucky with this weather?” she chirped.

      “We are,” Candace said without conviction. “I’ll get a chair.” After she’d hauled one from the garage, she folded herself into it and said, “I’m being selfish. I should have stayed inside. I’ll drive you crazy. I’m so jittery, I can’t concentrate on anything.”

      Hollis examined Candace. Early in their friendship, Candace had identified herself as a fellow Virgo and a woman who prided herself on being an organized positive pragmatist. Dressed in tailored clothes, accessorized with conservative but high-quality accessories and shod in highly polished, “sensible” pumps she was a quintessential polished professional executive assistant. Today, baggy jeans, a stained and faded T-shirt, and a misshapen navy cardigan not only drew attention to her short, stocky body but emphasized her state of mind. Her square-cut chin-length brown bob, wide-set brown eyes and regular features devoid of makeup normally underscored her no-nonsense approach to life. Today the tension in her face telegraphed that she was anything but “in charge”.

      Candace reached into her sweater pocket and yanked out a cell phone. She pressed buttons, listened, snapped it shut and stuffed it back in her pocket.

      “My god, where is he?”

      Her anxiety hung in the air.

      “Who?”

      “My brother.”

      Hollis had met Candace’s brother, Danson, several times and knew that the muscular and athletic young man supported himself as a nightclub bouncer but spent time promoting and playing box lacrosse, the indoor winter version of the summer game.

      “What’s the problem?”

      “I’ve been calling him for days. Days and days. I’ve phoned his friends and his boss. He worked last Saturday. That’s the last anyone has seen or heard of him. His tenant, the guy who rents the second bedroom in his apartment, isn’t there either.”

      “Is that unusual?”

      Candace shrugged. “Search me. I haven’t met him. His first name is Gregory, and I haven’t a clue what his last name is.” She shrugged. “Apparently Gregory’s a sales rep who hates motels and wants his own place when he comes to Toronto.”

      “So no one is there to answer the phone.”

      “Not the apartment phone and not Danson’s cell phone. Last time I talked to him, he scared me, because he implied he was on the trail of something important. I’m frightened that something terrible has happened to him.”

      “What and why?”

      Candace shook her head. “It’s a long story, and it’s taken me a few days to get really worried. At first I was furious, especially when Jack showed up on Wednesday.”

      “Jack?”

      “Remember two weeks ago, when you and Danson came for Saturday lunch?”

      When she’d met Danson in July or August, he’d struck Hollis as intense and obsessive. Her first impression had been confirmed at that mid-October lunch. It had been warm, and they’d eaten out here in the garden. She recalled lobbing an innocuous question. “Candace says you play lacrosse and…”

      Danson hadn’t waited for her to finish. “Play, recruit, organize—lacrosse is officially our national sport. I bet you didn’t know that. Hardly anyone does.” He didn’t require a response.

      “It’s a totally demanding game. You have to be totally fit, totally committed. I wish the government would pass legislation to make it compulsory in our schools. Forget football or even soccer. Lacrosse is the sport all young people should play.”

      Candace intervened. “Hollis, it is a great spectator sport. You and I should go to a game after Christmas.”

      Danson reached across the red and white checked tablecloth and laid his hand over his sister’s. “Candace, I have a favour to ask—a big one.”

      Hollis sensed that whatever the request, the answer would be ‘yes’.”

      “Remember when I went to Montreal a few weeks ago?”

      Candace sipped her wine and nodded.

      “I recruited a great player, totally great, and he needs somewhere to stay until he gets a day job and place to live.”

      Candace toyed with the stem of her wine glass and waited with a half-smile on her lips as if she anticipated what was coming.

      “Since you don’t have a tenant in the basement studio apartment, it occurred to me that he might camp out there for a few weeks. It wouldn’t be for long, and he’d pay rent,” Danson said.

      Candace had looked as if she wanted to refuse but found it hard to deny her baby brother anything.

      “It was a lovely lunch,” Hollis said now. “Danson wanted a lacrosse player to crash in your basement apartment. I recall that you said yes, but your expression said no.”

      “Absolutely right. It’s hard for me to say no to Danson. He has a generous heart, and he’s always taking care of others. Sometimes it’s us, sometimes it’s friends, this time it was a lacrosse player. It’s a wonderful quality, but last week a woman at work told me her daughter would like to rent the basement apartment for a year. I didn’t want to turn down a year’s guaranteed rent. When I called Danson with the news, he understood and promised to tell Jack.”

      Candace ran the fingers of both hands through her hair, interlaced her fingers behind her neck and pressed her head back as if trying to squeeze her tension away. She released her hands and crossed her arms over her chest. “Jack Michaels phoned Tuesday evening. He sounded so pleased that he had a place to stay that I couldn’t say no. He moved in on Wednesday.”

      Elizabeth howled. MacTee had accidentally upended her, and she’d banged her head on the edge of the sandbox. Candace jerked to her feet and rushed to comfort the little girl. “You’re fine, Elizabeth,” she said as she picked her up.

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