The Last Witness (15 page)

“Jack,” Hodgson said before stopping himself. “Mr. Fisher. Look, I’m going to level with you. It’s been several days now. Nobody seems to know where Christine is or what happened to her.”

“You think something happened to her?”

“We don’t know.”

“Maybe she just went away for awhile.”

“Without notifying her school? What about her classes?”

“I can’t explain that.”

“Jack.” He did it again. “Mr. Fisher … Kathy and I are police officers. We’ve dealt with this sort of thing before.”

“I’m sure you have.”

“When people go missing for a couple days like this …then a few days … then a week … and they don’t call anyone … well …”

“Well what?”

“We were hoping you could help us.”

It was her again.

“How?” said Jack, avoiding her now and eyeing only Hodgson.

“Well,” Hodgson said, “has she ever done anything like this before? Just disappeared like that?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Does she have any financial problems?”

“No. Christine’s very responsible that way.”

“What about her friend? The one who lives with her? Does she have any financial problems?”

“I don’t know but I don’t think Christine would get mixed up with someone like that. Like I said she’s very responsible.”

“Has Christine been seeing someone lately?” The woman again. “Somebody new maybe?”

“Why are you asking me? Why don’t you ask her parents?”

“We did and they don’t know anything but then Christine hasn’t been in touch with them and she has been in touch with you.”

She said it accusingly.

“All I got were these email picture things,” Jack said.

“Mr. Fisher,” she said, “we were wondering why she’s been in touch with nobody else … nobody else on the face of the earth … but she did contact you … and more than once now. Twice. There has to be a reason.”

“I don’t know.”

Hodgson held up his hand, a sign to stop. He looked frustrated.

“Mr. Fisher, you don’t mind if I forward this latest 3DE to my office, do you? Like I did before?”

“No. Go right ahead. I would but I don’t know how to do it.”

“I remember you saying that.”

Hodgson tapped away on the keys and did his business. Jack marvelled at how hands as big as his could move so quickly on the keypad. Hodgson’s fingers made the keys look tiny,
insignificant, and it reminded Jack of his last visit when he was leaving and he put his arms on his sides. He made the room shrink.

“How is that titanium knee of yours?” Jack piped up.

“It’s getting better. Getting better all the time. A little stiff now and then, that’s all. But thanks for asking.”

The woman broke in. “Mr. Fisher, one more thing. This package Christine left for you. She said you’ll find it in your old hiding place. Can you tell us where that is?”

“Our old hiding place? That would be at the gorge.”

“The gorge?”

“The Elora Gorge.”

“And where exactly is that?” said Hodgson.

“It’s where the two rivers meet … the Irvine and the Grand … in Elora … just under the bridge.”

“What bridge?”

“The bridge that goes over the Irvine River. You see there are these big posts or pillars … they hold up the bridge … and the spot … our spot … was behind one of the pillars.”

Hodgson took out his pen and notebook. He started writing. “What pillar would that be?”

“The first one.”

“Okay let’s back up and take it from the top, shall we? The place where the two rivers meet.”

“Look,” said Jack, “the best place to see the gorge is Lovers Leap. From there you look off to the right and you can see the bridge over the Irvine River. The first pillar … right behind it … was our hiding place.”

“Mr. Fisher, this is very helpful,” the woman said and she touched Jack’s hand again. But he drew back and she saw his discomfiture.

So did Hodgson.

Kitchener, Ontario, October 2039

19

The ice-cold beer went down nicely. It was much appreciated after the hazardous night the crew from Station No. 5 of the Kitchener Fire Department just had. They had spent three hours battling a blaze in an apartment complex on the east side of town. One of them had to be treated for smoke inhalation and another got his eyebrows singed, but the rest were all right. When the crew got back to the hall, completely spent, they showered and went to sleep, and when their shift was done they didn’t go home but hit the pub. It was a good way to cool down.

“Another pitcher please.”

This was as good a time as any for firefighter Brett Krust to get a little drunk because the twin cities of Kitchener-Waterloo were hosting Oktoberfest. The annual celebration, North America’s biggest Bavarian festival, had just kicked off. It meant a lot of drinking and partying, and over nine days more than a million people would visit, tripling the local population. Since many families in the area had German roots, Oktoberfest was a throwback to heritage, a time for
Gemutlichkeit
. Congeniality.

Brett didn’t have a German bone in his body, but he liked his beer and drinking with the guys from the hall. One firefighter from his crew, Clifford, had a son who went to school with Brett’s daughter Stephanie. Both kids were thirteen and Grade 8 students at Williamsburg Senior Public School.

“What do you tell a kid who starts asking lots of questions about history?” said Clifford, sipping his brew.

“What do you mean?” said Brett.

“Jeff’s taking this course about the twentieth century. He wants to know how many Jews were killed in the Second World War.”

“Not enough,” said Brett and they both laughed.

Brett didn’t have much sympathy. Ten years earlier, after seeing thousands of Christians rounded up and killed mercilessly by Islamic fundamentalists in the Great Holocaust of Southern Turkey, he figured it was time people started paying more attention to a growing problem. He was an avid reader of a blog called The Cobra. The Cobra said that immigration of undesirables was destroying the fabric of Western society. This was nothing new. Many people had been saying that for years, but according to The Cobra, the Great Holocaust of 2029 was the wake-up call. The Cobra said if such a thing could happen in Turkey, it could happen here and people should wise up before it’s too late. The Cobra said there was nothing wrong with Caucasians and that too many years of apologizing should come to an end.

“I’m not prejudiced,” said Clifford.

“Neither am I,” said Brett.

“There’s a couple Chinese kids in Jeff’s class.”

“I don’t have a problem with that. I mean they’re free to celebrate who they are but what about us? Why can’t we?”

“That’s just it. We can’t.”

Brett didn’t see the logic in that. Wellington County remained a conservative, predominantly white society that hadn’t been impacted by the influx of visible minorities who for years were flocking to the big cities. Brett wanted to keep things the way they were, so he kept reading The Cobra and he even went further. He joined a group of like-minded thinkers who often got together to talk. They all read The Cobra.

Brett’s daughter Stephanie never brought schoolwork to her father because he was rarely home. He was a firefighter who worked shifts, and if he wasn’t sleeping at the hall he was out with the guys, so Stephanie brought her schoolwork to her mother Jennifer. When Brett got home, he found them both fast asleep. Oktoberfest was in full swing, and he and the boys had just gone through six pitchers of beer.

“Jen,” he said, nudging his wife in bed. “Get up. We gotta talk.”

He touched her arm. Jennifer was all skin and bone. Her blonde hair spewed over her shoulders across the pillow. She stirred.

“What?” she said.

“Has Steph been asking you about Jews?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Has she been asking you about Jews?”

Jennifer rubbed her eyes. “She mentioned something. They’re taking a course at school about the twentieth century or wars of the twentieth century or something like that.”

“So?”

“So they’re studying the Jewish holocaust.”

That was enough for Brett. His head still cloudy from the beer, he stormed into Stephanie’s room and switched on the light.

“What the hell is going on at your school!” he roared.

He was mad.

“What?” Stephanie said.

He asked her again and she said they were studying Nazi Germany. The death camps. The gas chambers. The whole thing.

“Lemme see your e-reader!” he demanded.

“It’s not in our e-reader.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s nothing in there about it. Our teacher tells us about it in her lectures.”

“What’s her name?”

“Christine Fisher. She’s nice.”

“I don’t care how nice she is but I sure as hell don’t want her brainwashing my daughter with all this crap!”

Jennifer, cowering in the doorway, hated it when he came home like this. It wasn’t the first time.

“You’re drunk,” she said.

“I’m not drunk! Well maybe a little but not as drunk as you!”

“What’re you talking about, Brett?”

“I know you go over this stuff with her. And you just take it? Why don’t you tell her it’s not true?”

“She’s learning it at school. I don’t like to mix in.”

“You don’t like to mix in! What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I figure her teacher must know what she’s talking about.”

Brett, eyes glassy, leaned his lanky frame against the door.

“You’re drunk,” she said again.

“Listen Jen, if you don’t do something about this I’m gonna march into that school and tell her myself!”

“Tell who?”

“Anyone I have to! I’ll see the principal if I have to!”

Their son, seven years old, was up now. He asked what was going on.

“Your father has been drinking again,” Jennifer told him.

“Why you piece of shit!”

Brett wouldn’t be belittled by his wife in front of the kids like that. He grabbed her by the hair and pushed her onto the bed. She was barely a hundred pounds and he didn’t have to push very hard. She fell on top of Stephanie, who began to cry. She always did that when her parents fought and it set Jennifer off. Soon both of them – Stephanie and Jennifer – were crying and then the boy, too. The three of them. The little boy wanted to join his mother and sister on the bed, but Brett wouldn’t allow it. He stepped in front of his son, blocking his way, his big firefighter hands on the boy’s shoulders so he couldn’t budge. Then he wrapped his arms around him. Tight.

“You’re choking him!” Jennifer screamed. “You’re choking him!” She got off the bed and tried to pry his hands away from their son, but Brett was a man and she was so slight. “Let him go! Let him go!”

But Brett wouldn’t let go. She flailed away at him with those boney arms of hers, the back of her hands, the back of her wrists, pounding him with everything she had. There wasn’t much flesh on her. He just laughed, but then she caught him with an elbow.

“You bitch!” Brett said and he told her to stop. But she wouldn’t. “I’m warning you,” he said. Finally, he had enough. With his fist clenched, he hit her in the face and she fell on the floor, the blood gushing from her nose like a river.

“Mommy!” screamed their son, rushing to her side.

The three of them – Jennifer and her two children – were huddled on the floor next to the bed embracing one another. Crying. Snivelling. Jennifer bleeding badly. Her nose looked broken.

Brett stood there, hovering over them. The man of the house. He shook his head and crossed his arms.

“This is all your fault, Jen,” he said. “And that teacher of yours, Steph. That Fisher woman.”

20

“Jack, this will make you famous.”

Mary Lou Bennett, Director of Care at the Greenwich Village Seniors Center, had the last word when it came to requests involving her residents, but there were never requests from the media. Who wanted to talk to old people in a seniors’ home? But Trish Anderson did. She hosted a talk show that was syndicated across radio, television, Internet and 3D networks in North America, Europe, Australia and English-language outlets right around the world. The audience was huge. The theme this time would be racial and ethnic tensions, the trigger a sudden outbreak of violence between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa.

An advance person from the show was preparing Jack for his interview, hooking him up to receptors for sound and 3D imaging in a lounge on the building’s mezzanine level. It was a small, intimate room that had never been used for anything like this before. Mary Lou regarded Jack as her responsibility. She made sure a glass of water was on hand so he wouldn’t dehydrate, and then thought orange juice was better and replaced it. This would be live. She told the show’s producer that Jack was a hundred years old, that even though he was in stable health he had a problem with blood pressure and was not to be stressed, and everyone knew why Jack got invited. Ever since the article appeared in the
Times
, word was out that he might be the last living survivor of the Jewish holocaust from the last century.

Images of Trish Anderson and her other guests would be beamed in 3D format into the lounge while a small camera would shoot Jack as he talked. Jack would follow the proceedings and watch what everyone was saying. The show was in full swing when he finally got connected, the familiar face of the host coming in loud and clear.

“Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for your comments. We have been speaking with Hans Stracht, Austrian ambassador to the United Nations. Now we go to New York and a very special guest. Mr. Jack Fisher. Hello Mr. Fisher. Welcome to Talk Back.”

“Can you hear me?” said Jack, who wasn’t even looking at the camera. He was talking across the room to Mary Lou.

“We can hear you,” said Anderson. “Now if you just look this way. Great. We’ve been speaking with Austria’s ambassador to the UN who said his country never had any concentration camps or at least death camps during the Nazi era. Is that right, Mr. Fisher?”

“Austria?”

“Yes Austria.”

“Well I was at
Auschwitz
. That was in Poland.”