Manziuk and Ryan

In his small private office on the third floor of the Yonge Street police station, Detective-Inspector Paul Manziuk signed his daily report. His hand was firm, letters neat and round and easy to read—the letters of a man who hated to write and felt uncomfortable doing it, as if his fifth grade teacher were standing at his shoulder shaking her head over the way he made each stroke.

But when the signature was complete, the anger he had been holding inside could no longer be contained. It found its way into his clenched fist, and Manziuk brought that fist crashing onto his desk, scattering papers to the floor and sending a large blue-and-gold marble rolling along the edge of the report.

Instinctively, Manziuk caught the marble, dwarfing it in his big hand. He opened his palm and rolled the marble over it, feeling the cool smooth surface.

Two months ago, the marble had been in the possession of an attractive twenty-two-year-old woman. A college student, she’d been using the marbles in an experiment with autistic children—on her way to becoming a very special kind of teacher.

There were twenty-four marbles altogether—specially made, larger than normal, very bright, almost neon—six of each color—red, green, blue, and yellow—all with sparkling gold mixed in. At least, there should have been six of each color. One of the marbles, a blue and gold one, was missing. For some reason, the marbles had been strewn all over the ground where the body lay, and they had only been able to find twenty-three.

Remembrance of the girl’s lifeless body and the feeling of impotent rage that had overcome him when he first saw it broke in waves over Manziuk.

It could just as easily have been Lisa, his daughter, twenty-one and a student at the same college.

How could you protect your daughters against people who didn’t need a motive? How could you defend them against men who seemed to think it was their God-given right to do what they wanted to any woman they happened to see? Being a police officer didn’t help. In fact, it made things worse—he had to see the bodies, had to witness the pain and anger of relatives and friends, had to feel twice as helpless because he knew how little there was to go on in a case like this. And there had been three similar cases in Toronto since last October.

He grunted, remembering how his friend and fellow police officer, Joe Hanover from Detroit, had teased him about having a soft cushy job in “Toronto the Good.” Though the nickname was still used now and then, the truth was the city was fast approaching the crime rate of others that were not so good.

And wishing it wasn’t so didn’t change anything. You had to deal with things as they came, keep going no matter how much you wanted to give up, try to make some kind of a difference.

Manziuk flexed his legs and thrust his powerful back against the chair as he pushed away from the cluttered desk. He picked up the reports, then paused to stretch his large bulk before walking to the office door and opening it.

“James.” He didn’t raise his voice, but the single word penetrated every corner of the outer office.

The young man reached for the reports and, without a word, strode off down a hallway. Manziuk stood gazing around the busy room. No one paid him any attention. He grunted once and then went back into his office, shutting the door with a snap.

He moved restlessly around the small room, glancing at his special commendations, pausing for a moment to stare at the picture his wife had given him the day after he’d complained that he never got out into the country anymore. It was a print of a young eagle spreading its wings above a peaceful valley, with a small mouse racing below. The hunter and the hunted.

He looked at the picture often. For some reason, it calmed him. Perhaps because it served as a reminder that throughout the natural world, life and death go hand in hand. No one being is more important than any other. Even the predator has its place.

It was good to remember that, since he had to deal with a lot of predators. And worse. Animals normally kill only for food. But in Manziuk’s world there were those who killed, not for need, but for pleasure. Animals seemed to have it down better.

Manziuk walked around the room, pausing for a moment to look out of his narrow window at the street three stories below. Hot out there. Steam was rising. Or maybe it was smog. Young women wearing too little—not too little for the weather—too little because of how it gave some men an excuse.

He shut the venetian blind and walked past his desk and chair, past the filing cabinet in the corner, around to the leather chair in front of his desk. Leather was hot in this weather. Bare flesh stuck to it.

Flesh. The smell of flesh. He’d been called in at 2:00 AM because they thought a body they’d found might be related to his homicide case. The body had been there no more than a day, but intense heat had hastened decomposition.

On the chance it was a homicide, he’d pushed to get the autopsy done right away, but the cause of death had turned out to be accidental. She’d been drinking and doing drugs, and had fallen, smashing her head on a jagged piece of broken sink somebody had thrown in the alleyway.

Accidental. Nobody’s fault. Or everybody’s. The girl was a few months short of sixteen, from a good middle-class home. She’d run away, and her parents couldn’t persuade her to come back. And the authorities had shrugged their shoulders and said she was old enough to look after herself. Nothing they could do.

So she’d been living with a guy in his twenties and taking drugs like they were candy and slurping beers like they were pop, and now she was dead.

Leaving Manziuk to tell her parents. To watch their eyes grow blank, and see their bodies shrink back from the pain, to feel their anger as they massed him in a lump with all the others who didn’t care.

Only he did care.

Why’d he want to keep this lousy job, anyway? Twenty-nine years a cop, ever since he graduated from grade twelve as a fresh-faced idealist of eighteen. Going to set the world straight.

He looked at his watch. 12:20 PM. He’d spent the dawn hours on the teenager’s body, and the rest of the morning following the last possible lead on the homicide he’d been dealing with for eight, no, nearly nine, weeks. But the lead had gone the way of every other lead they’d had.

There was nothing more he could do here. And he was tired. So tired.

He turned abruptly and went to his desk. For a long moment, he stared at it. Papers littered the top, spilling onto the garbage can and carpet. The picture of his wife and him on their twenty-fifth anniversary was on its back, partially hidden by the accumulation of files. The triple-frame pictures of his daughter and two sons had fared better. It stood there in its U with a cloth handkerchief draped unevenly over the faces.

Manziuk remembered using the handkerchief to mop his sweating face and neck half an hour before. He leaned his bulk forward to set his wife and himself up, in the process letting more papers tumble onto the floor. He swore under his breath and picked up the handkerchief. Before he put it back into his pocket, he mopped his face and neck again. This stupid weather! Air-conditioning was fine until the day it malfunctioned; then you were helpless; not used to the heat anymore. Soft. You drove to your air-conditioned office in your air-conditioned car and you went home to your air-conditioned house and the only time you were out in the weather was when you took a day off to see the Blue Jays or to relax with a drink in your backyard.

Unless, of course, you had to do leg work on a case. Like the one he’d just been on. He went back to his door and opened it. Instantaneous quiet dropped like a shroud onto the outer office. One treaded softly when Manziuk was in a bad mood, and he’d been in one for the past three weeks.

“Craig,” he barked.

Detective-Sergeant Woodward Craig, age fifty-nine, hot, tired, and overworked, hoisted his sweaty body out of the chair he’d been dozing in and followed Manziuk. Manziuk, at six-five, 230 pounds, was not easily ignored. But more than that, the two men had worked together often over the years, and they had developed mutual respect. They each knew that when they were together, the other’s back would be adequately covered. No words had ever been spoken on the subject. They were no more and no less than good cops who played by the rules and who would retire with a small pension and the knowledge that in a troubled world they had done a little bit of good.

“Your reports done?” Manziuk asked as Craig entered the office and shut the door.

“Didn’t know if you’d want anything else.” Woody stared at the chair in front of the desk.

Manziuk noticed. “You need my permission to sit down?”

Woody tried a grin, but his face was too tired to hold it for long. “It is your office.”

“So it is. All right.” With exaggerated politeness, Manziuk pointed to a chair. “Sit down, won’t you?”

Detective-Sergeant Craig ignored the chair and leaned, half-sitting, half standing, against the edge of the desk, as if ready to move at a second’s notice.

Manziuk turned and walked to the window. “This Matheson case is dead-ended. We thought we had a lead and we’ve busted our behinds following it up, but you know what happened. Not a blasted thing! We’ve searched every inch of the grounds where she was found, talked to everybody who lived in the area, suspected everyone who knew her. And we’ve got absolutely nothing! Not one more lousy lead to work on! So now we put it on a back burner and hope some guy confesses when we catch him for something else. And we hope to God he doesn’t do it again. Fat chance! If he gets away this time, he’ll do it again all right. Anyway, we’re off it for now.”

He turned to face Craig. “I know it’s hard to leave it as a red mark, but we don’t have enough men to keep the good ones running in circles chasing their tails. We can’t do any more than we’ve already done. Maybe we’ll think of something later. So we’ll take a little break. Here it is, July long weekend. We’ve got nothing to do from now until Tuesday morning, so go home and get a tan or something. All right?”

Craig smiled. “All right.” There was a moment’s pause. “And you? Are you going home to get a tan?”

Manziuk glared at his sergeant for a moment, gray eyes meeting brown in understanding.

“Yes. Soon as I get these blasted files out of here, I’m gone.”

Craig slipped off the desk and began picking up the personal effects that were strewn among the papers. “I’ll take these downstairs on my way out.” He found the bag they belonged in and replaced the items, comb, keys, wallet, Kleenex, pen, notebook. He picked up the small chamois drawstring bag that held the marbles and put them back inside. As he was about to close the bag, Manziuk reached over and dropped in the marble he had been holding.

Manziuk’s voice was tinged with the frustration he still felt. “I wish there was something else these things could tell us.”

Craig walked to the door, then paused. “See you Tuesday, then.”

Manziuk spent twenty minutes sorting and filing papers. At last, he took his battered hat from its hook (straw for summer—hated to wear it, but the small bald spot on the top of his head had been burned by the sun once, and once was one time too many) and barged out of his office through the adjoining room. As before, the atmosphere became quiet and efficient.

When he reached the elevator on the wall opposite his office, he pressed the down button, waited until the doors slid apart, and then turned to the people in the office. “It’s all right,” he spoke gruffly. “You’re allowed to breathe again.”

At 4:30 that afternoon, a different Manziuk was in the back yard of his house lounging on a white molded plastic chair set on the eight-foot slab of concrete which passed for a patio. In one hand, he held a half-full glass; in the other, a Dick Francis novel he had been wanting to read for at least four months.

In the background, the phone began to ring steadily.

On the sixth ring, he heaved his bulk out of the chair and lumbered to the patio door. His large bare feet made flapping noises.

On the eighth ring, he answered it.

He listened for a moment, then grunted. “Oh, sure. Tell that to somebody who’ll believe you.” More listening. “She’s young, is she?” The answer coming in the affirmative, he swore. “Oh, you know I’ll come. But I really didn’t—Oh, forget it! Who’s available for second?… Where’s Woody? No, don’t bother him. He needs some rest. Not as young as he used to be. Who else is available?… No way. Not on your life!… Do I have a choice?… No, don’t bother him.… Oh, all right, give me Ryan and blast you all!” He slammed the receiver down and stared at it for a minute. “I knew I should have left town!” he muttered. But his wife Loretta was out shopping and there was no one to hear. Loretta. The supper they were having tonight! It was the first time in months they’d been able to plan an evening with friends.

And now this! Not only did he have a murderer to catch, but his second was a green cop, brand new on the job, and a woman to boot! Maybe he was an old-fashioned chauvinist like his daughter said. Okay, he knew he was. But having women on homicide just didn’t seem right.

Not his business, though. The directive from city hall said the force had to be half female in twenty years. Same as the population.

As if the criminals would follow the same directives.

But it wasn’t his problem. Except for the fact that he had to go out there with an inexperienced partner. No, not just inexperienced. He could handle that. What bothered him most was the very real fear Ryan had been promoted solely because of her race and gender, and not her skill. To meet the numbers, play the political game. That scared him. He sure hoped the boys—and girls—in their ivory towers knew what they were doing. But he didn’t have time to worry about politics. He had a murder to attend.

He lumbered back to the patio and picked up his glass and the book. Shutting the patio door with a thump, he dumped the remains of his drink down the sink and found a marker for the book. He sighed as he put it back on a shelf. Little chance he’d get to it again before he had forgotten what he’d already read.

On the second floor of the recently refurbished but still old police headquarters, newly promoted Jacqueline Ryan sat in the center of a desk swinging both shapely brown legs and laughing with her friend, Constable Beverly Champion, Vice Squad, a ten-year veteran and mother of two young sons.

“So, what do you think? Should I celebrate by a night on the town or a new outfit?”

Bev laughed. “How about a new outfit to wear for a night on the town?”

“Mmm. Not a bad idea.”

“Have you told your family yet?”

“They think I’m nuts!” Jacquie’s normally musical alto changed to a shrill soprano, “What girl in her right mind would want to go around investigating murders?” A low growl, “Why don’t you just find a good man and settle down?” A firm alto, “What do you think you’ll do if you have to go after a murderer?” A threatening bass, “And what will you do if the murderer goes after you?”

“It must be fun having your aunts and grandmother and cousins all living close by.”

“Fun? You think it’s fun? Girl, you need to see more of life!” In one swift, graceful motion, Jacquie jumped off the desk and began to pace the small cubicle. “But, seriously, I do have one very real concern. Manziuk.”

Bev’s reply was cautious. “I’ve heard he doesn’t miss anything. He hates laziness.”

Jacquie continued to pace the tiny area, using her hands to punctuate each sentence. “What I’ve heard is he comes down like a ton of bricks on anybody who makes a mistake. And you know what else? He reminds me of a teacher I had in grade six. Big man, stomach the size of an oven, never so much as a hint of a smile. Hey, we thought if he ever did smile, he might literally crack his face. Well, that’s who Manziuk reminds me of.” Jacquie paused to arrange her features into a deadpan, chin thrust out, lips in a thin line, eyes cold and hard.

Bev laughed, then became serious. “But Manziuk’s good, Jacquie. Everybody says so.”

Jacquie’s face relaxed, but she resumed pacing. “He’s one of the best. But I’m still nervous when I think about having to work with him. Who knows what he’ll think of me?”

“What’s to think? You’re a good cop. You graduated near the top of your class in criminology. You paid your dues in narcotics and juvenile. You just spent a year in vice.”

“But he’s old school. Worked his way up step by step. And the word is he doesn’t have any time for cops who learn the business at university. And then there’s my age. I’m only twenty-eight. How many homicide detectives are that young? Not to mention the fact I’m a woman. And black. And we both know that’s why I got the promotion.”

“Jacquie, that’s not true!”

“Grow up, Bev! I’m not complaining. But I know perfectly well the police force has a mandate to promote more blacks and more women. So here I am—two for the price of one!”

“Well, don’t get in a knot over it. He works with Detective-Sergeant Craig all the time. Maybe you’ll never even have to go near Manziuk.”

“I sure hope not. At least not till I know my way around.”