Free The Taken by Inger Ash Wolfe

from his staring and turned the key in the ignition. He pushed the throttle and the boat curved away from the scene in a wide circle.
    The body was almost in the boat. “Where’s your truck?” Dale asked the other man.
    “It’s backed up against the dock.”
    “Anyone there?”
    “We’ll be sure before we tie up.”
    The other man put his boat in drive again, and headed back in the direction he’d come in. Dale sat in one of the leather seats, his eyes locked to the heartbreaking form, and for the first time, he wept. Even without her eyes to look emptily on him, it was as if her entire body could see him.
    When they came around into the island’s lee, the shore seemed quiet, and they went directly to the dock. The other man backed his truck down as far as it was safe, and the two of them wrapped the body in a tarp and hefted it together into the flatbed. They drove the short distance to town and down into its streets. “There,” said Dale, pointing at one of the pretty gabled houses in the middle of the street. “Pull into that driveway.”
    They parked under the big willow. Its feathery flowers had gone to seed and a carpet of soft catkins lay on the asphalt. “He’s done well for himself,” said Dale. The garden was well kept, with rare trees and a small burbling fountain in the bend of a serpentine flagstone path that led to the door. They lifted the corpse out of the back of the truck and carried it down the path and laid it on the broad granite step in front of a heavy oak door. Dale took a note out of his breast pocket and, with a fishhook, attached it to the tarp. Then he rang the doorbell and the two men walked in a leisurely fashion back down the path.“What the good goddamn?” said Hazel Micallef. Wingate was looking at his copy and held his finger up. He was a slower reader. He was sitting across from her in her office, the first time she’d tried to occupy that chair since the end of March. She realized, a little surprised by the thought, that she was finally on the uptick. After a minute, Wingate laid the newspaper against her desktop.
    “I didn’t see that coming,” he said.
    “Is this Eldwin character back yet? I want him in here, like now.”
    “I did try him again, this morning, but his wife doesn’t expect him back up until this afternoon.”
    “Did she say where he went?”
    “Toronto. He had meetings, she said.”
    “He writes three chapters of this thing, all hell breaks loose, and he’s in meetings in the Big Smoke? Who is this guy? Call his wife back. Tell her we want to talk to him. Now.”
    “Okay –” He flipped open his PNB and found Eldwin’s number. “You want me to do this here?”
    “On speakerphone.”
    He dialled and a woman answered. “What is it?”
    “Um, Mrs. Eldwin?”
    “Speaking.” She sounded mad as hell.
    “This is Detective Constable James Wingate calling again.” “You called this morning.”
    He and Hazel traded a look. “That’s right, Ma’am. I was hoping your husband was home. You said you were expecting him.”
    “‘Expecting’ is the wrong word to use in relation to my husband.”
    “So he isn’t home?”
    “Wow, you
are
a detective.”
    Hazel bent over the phone. “Mrs. Eldwin,” she said firmly. “This is Inspector Detective Hazel Micallef. I’d advise you to drop your tone.”
    “Jesus Christ,” Mrs. Eldwin muttered. “What did he do?”
    “Why do you think he did something?”
    “Well, you’re bloody eager to get him on the phone.”
    “We just need to talk to him,” said Wingate. “Clear a couple of things up.”
    The unmistakable sound of ice tinkling in a glass came over the speakers. “Let me ask you something, detectives. What do you know about PIs?”
    “I’m sorry?” said Wingate.
    “Do they even exist?”
    “Private investigators?”
    “Yes.”
    “Mrs. Eldwin –” he began in an effort to get her back on track, but Hazel interrupted.
    “Are you considering hiring a PI? Do you think