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CHAPTER 1
(Two Years Later)
The clock radio on the night stand clicked — 7 a.m.
Before the alarm could sound, a beefy finger came down and tapped the beige button in the center of the radio's flat top.
Joseph E. Williams had been sitting up on the edge of the bed for several minutes, waiting for 7 a.m. to come. He'd always been an early riser, but he'd been getting up even earlier these past few months. The bed had become a lonely place for him in the eight months since his wife had died, and if he wasn't sleeping in it he'd rather not be there at all. It was the best way he knew to prevent the dreams from haunting him.
He rubbed the last bit of sleep from his eyes and got up. His sleep-stiffened knee joints crackled like kindling as he straightened his legs. Forty-nine going on sixty, he thought.
After running his fingers through the thin patch of black-hair on top of his head, he slipped on a pair of dirty gray socks and an equally dirty pair of gray corduroy pants. Then he took the brown-striped shirt off the chair by the bed and sniffed at the underarms. The shirt smelled a little, but was still good for another day. Maybe even two. He put it on.
Then he took the well-worn leather holster from the chair and fitted it over his shoulders, sliding it back and forth until it was comfortable on his body.
At the door, he pulled a key from his pants pocket and unlocked the small, square cabinet set into the wall over the door jamb. Then he reached up, stretching up onto his toes, and took his gun from inside the cabinet.
Joe used an almost ancient .38. A relatively small gun, but light and easy to carry.
While there had been calls from within the department for years for more powerful and quicker magnum and semi-automatic handguns, Joe had never been an advocate of more firepower. He had been more than satisfied with his police-issue .38 — the first and only gun he'd ever owned. It had served him well over the years, especially since he'd never fired it in the line of duty.
Never had to.
The way Joe saw it, there wasn't a gun in the world big enough or powerful enough to save his life.
The only thing that could do that was common sense.
And he had plenty of that. Enough to be one of the top detectives in 22 Division of the Peel Regional Police Force, a force that served the cities of Brampton and Mississauga, just north and west of Toronto.
He'd always loved his work, and prided himself on being a good cop. But when Carol died the job became something more. It became his coping mechanism, forcing him to handle his grief and get on with his life.
Having a young daughter had helped, too.
When Carol checked into the hospital for the last time, she'd made Joe promise he'd look after Melissa. He promised Carol that he'd do his best. And he was doing his best. Whether or not his best was what was best for her, who knew?
With a sure hand, Joe loaded the gun with six fresh bullets and slipped it into the holster. He adjusted the straps again and then forgot the gun was even there.
He opened the bedroom door and headed downstairs. As he descended the steps he could hear Melissa setting the table for breakfast. The air was filled with the aromatic smell of fresh brewed coffee and pancakes.
Joe stopped at the bottom of the stairs and took a moment to watch his daughter move around the kitchen. She was twenty years old and coming into her own as a woman. Her auburn hair had grown beautifully curly through her teenage years, reminding Joe of her mother more and more each day. Sometimes on mornings like this, when the light shone through the windows at a certain angle, Joe saw a lot of Carol in his daughter. It wasn't anything major, just a few gestures and mannerisms, but enough for Joe to sometimes call out Carol's name when he'd obviously meant to say Melissa.
"Good morning, Melissa," Joe said, entering the kitchen.
"Shh!" she answered, gesturing at the old radio sitting on top of the refrigerator.
In addition to the smell of coffee and hotcakes, the air was also filled by the sound of the radio. Every morning without fail, Melissa listened to Sex in the Morning, a two-hour call-in talk show on CHOT — a.k.a. See-Hot — the city's small, alternative-listening station. The host, Ellen Grant, was a registered nurse, the author of two bestselling sex guides for teens, and an otherwise acknowledged expert on everything to do with sex. If it happened between the sheets or in the back seat of a Mustang, "The Sex Lady," as she called herself, knew about it. In detail.
"Hello, Mario from Willowdale," she greeted a new caller coolly. "How can I help you?"
"Hi, Ellen. First, I just want to say that I think your show is great."
"Thanks," Ellen said. "I like it too. Now, what's your problem?"
"Well ... I, uh ..."
Ellen waited patiently.
"I like girls and all ... But sometimes I have this fantasy about having sex with my best friend ..."
"Your male best friend?"
"Yeah, is that normal?"
"Fortunately Mario, this is completely normal —"
"Really?"
"Yes. Although they're probably not willing to admit it, everybody has had same-sex fantasies at some point in their lives. And just because you have them doesn't mean you're a latent homosexual."
"That's good," the caller said. He sounded like a teenager. He also sounded relieved.
"If you're having these kinds of fantasies all the time, that might indicate you have homosexual tendencies, but if that were the case there would be plenty of other signs to tell you that you were gay."
Joe let out a slightly exasperated sigh. "Do we have to listen to that stuff every morning?" he asked, sitting down to a bowl of Cheerios. If it wasn't teens worried about their sexual orientation it was middle-aged women with chlamydia — whatever the hell that was. The show was interesting, sure, but it wasn't what Joe considered to be suitable breakfast fare. "Can't you put it on an oldies station, or something?"
"These are the nineties, Dad. People are being more open about a lot of things — including sex."
"When I was your age —"
"— sex was something you had to get married to have," Melissa said, scrunching up her neck and lowering her voice in a parody of her father's gravel-throated one.
"And what's wrong with that?" asked Joe, slipping a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He hated beginning the day with his daughter on a confrontational note, but he just didn't appreciate having to sit and listen to some woman go on and on about sex like it was the greatest thing since store-bought ice cream. This morning's caller wasn't so bad, but sometimes talk on the show could get pretty explicit and, well, downright gross. Besides, all he really wanted to hear was the news and the score from last night's Blue Jays game.
"There's nothing wrong with it, Dad. Sex between a husband and wife is a beautiful thing, but married people aren't the only ones having sex, you know ... even when you were my age."
Joe scooped another spoonful of Cheerios, chewing it in silence, wondering if his daughter was still a virgin.
"Besides, it's not like I'm obsessed with sex," Melissa said, pouring her father a cup of coffee. "I just want to know everything I can about it. If you haven't noticed, I'm not a little girl anymore."
"Don't say that," Joe said softly. "Don't ever say that. You'll always be my little girl, no matter how old you are."
"Oh, give it a rest, Dad," Melissa said, getting up from the table. "I'm all grown up now and the more I know about sex — good and bad — the better off I'll be. Cream for your coffee?"
She had a point there. Melissa had graduated high school and was all set to attend Toronto's York University in September. Since she'd be living on campus, in a co-ed dorm no less, the more informed she was about sex, birth control and sexually transmitted diseases, the better off she'd be.
Joe held out his cup for some cream. "I suppose you're right —" he said, doing his best to sound like an understanding father "— what with you going to live at the university and all. Have they wrote you back to let you know which residence you'll be living in?"
Melissa's jaw dropped slightly in surprise.
The gesture made Joe uneasy. "What?" he said. "What is it?" "I, uh ..."
Joe raised his eyebrows, tilted his head slightly and turned his right ear toward his daughter.
"I haven't decided for sure yet whether or not I want to go to school in September."
"What?" Joe said in surprise. "Since when?"
"Since always, Dad."
"But you've always wanted to be a teacher. That's all you've talked about since you started high school."
"That's all you've talked about, Dad. I was just agreeing with you most of the time. The truth is, I'm interested in teaching, but I'm not sure it's what I want. Not yet, anyway. You're asking me to decide what I want to do for the rest of my life. It's a big decision, and I want to take more time to make up my mind."
Joe was nodding slowly, doing his best to remain calm. This kind of thing had always been Carol's department. If she were still alive he would have been free to show his displeasure by getting up from the table and stomping around the house. But he was alone now and he couldn't afford to blow his stack. Instead he had to be ... sensitive to what his daughter was saying. After all, Carol's death hadn't been easy for Melissa, either.
"I've been saving for your education all my life. It's one of the things I've been working for all these years," he said, managing to keep his voice down to only a few decibels above normal. "You never seemed to have a problem about going to university before."
Melissa turned off the radio and sat down at the table across from her father. She paused a moment, perhaps to gather up some courage. "That's because I'd always talked it over with mom. She said she was going to talk to you about it, but I guess she never had the strength to confront you with it before she died."
Joe was stunned into silence.
Had he been that tyrannical a husband and father?
It was a painful reminder of how much Carol had meant to him. Bit by bit he was discovering all the little things she'd done to keep the family running smoothly. He found it hard to believe that there was so much about her he'd taken for granted, but apparently there had been plenty.
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Knowing Carol had been aware of their daughter's plans for the future didn't change his opinion on the matter. Even if Melissa couldn't see it right now, going to school was the best thing for her.
Period.
Still, he couldn't tell her in so many words. He'd have to listen to what she had to say, and then try to persuade her that his was the best way.
And if that didn't work he'd put his foot down, telling her that not only was it the best way, it was the only way.
But that would all come later.
For now, he'd listen.
"All right," he said, taking a sip of his coffee. "If you aren't going to university in September, what are you going to do?"
Melissa took a sip out of her own cup, some sort of special tea that looked like pee and smelled like pine cones.
"Some of the girls from school were planning on traveling through Europe before getting jobs for the winter."
"Uh huh." Joe nodded. Spending the summer traveling wasn't so bad. He himself had hitchhiked across Canada after finishing high school. The trip didn't mean all that much to him now, but at the time he'd come home feeling like he'd done something important with his life. It had been a good feeling.
Europe was all right. She could spend a month or two with her friends and still make it back for the winter semester at York. And if she wanted to work, he could try and get her a job somewhere downtown, not too far from home. She'd be tired of it in a month and begging to go to school by Christmas.
"Okay," Joe said.
Melissa's face widened in a mixture of surprise and disbelief.
"You go to Europe with your friends," he continued. "Have a good time. And then when you come back you can decide whether you want to go to school or work. I'll talk to some people I know, maybe I can even have a job lined up for you by the time you get back."
The more Joe talked, the more Melissa's face soured. Obviously, he wasn't saying what she wanted to hear.
"What? What is it now?"
"Mom really didn't say anything to you about this, did she?" Joe shook his head.
"The job I was talking about isn't here in town."
"No. Where then? Mississauga? Oakville?" He paused a moment. "Toronto?"
Melissa didn't answer. The room was suddenly silent, the air thick with tension.
"Well?" Joe smiled nervously. "Where, then?"
"Israel."
Joe couldn't speak for several moments. Finally he shook his head and gasped, "What?"
"We were planning on going to Israel in the fall."
"What the hell kind of job can you get in Israel?" Joe's voice was considerably louder now. He felt his temper flaring, but couldn't help himself.
"We'd be working on a kibbutz," Melissa said, her voice starting to tremble and crack against the force of her father's bellows. "Doing all sorts of odd jobs."
"A kibbutz! A god-damn commune! But you're not even Jewish!" "You don't have to be."
Joe didn't know what to say. He wanted to know more, like how much money she'd make, where she'd be sleeping and whose brilliant idea this was in the first place, but none of that seemed important right now. Right now, all he could think was — She's not going! Not if he had anything to do with it.
"You're not going," he said, his voice calm, flat and impassive.
"I am too," Melissa said tentatively, as if testing the waters. She squared her shoulders. "And there's nothing you can do to stop me." She got up from the table and ran out of the kitchen.
Joe remained in his chair, sipping his coffee. Finally, unable to sit there any longer, he got up from the table and ran out of the kitchen after her. He was halfway up the stairs when the phone started ringing. He hesitated several seconds, wavering indecisively between his daughter upstairs and the ringing telephone down in the kitchen. A call this early in the morning had to be from work. Knowing that didn't make things any easier. In fact, it made things pretty black and white — a clear-cut choice between his job and his family.
The phone continued to ring.
Melissa's bedroom door slammed shut.
He decided to pick up the phone, ask whoever it was to call back, and then go upstairs and try to patch things up with his daughter.
He backpedaled down the steps and picked up the receiver from the phone on the wall.
"Hello, Joe Williams," he said.
"Joe." The slight English accent was unmistakable. It was his superior, Detective Sergeant Conly. But what the hell was he calling for this early in the morning? "I'm glad I got hold of you before you left the house."
"Why? What's up?"
"A murder, Joe."
"What happened?"
"Uh, it's kind of hard to explain. I'd rather fill you in when you get here."
"All right. Where's here?"
"I'm at Number Eight Lisa Street. The middle building.
Apartment 413."
"Got it."
"Just one thing, though."
"What?"
"Find a spot in the visitor's lot. We're trying to keep this kind of low-key until we figure out what the hell happened." "That bad?"
"Like I said, I'd rather you get on over here and see for yourself."
"Right. Gimme about twenty minutes." He hung up the phone, turned and looked upstairs. Melissa's door was still closed. He went up the stairs to her room and knocked on the door.
No answer.
"Melissa?"
Nothing.
He waited there a minute.
"We'll talk about it tonight, then," he said.
Again, no answer.
Without saying another word, he went back down the stairs, and left the house.
CHAPTER 2
Joe made a quick stop at the Baker's Dozen donut shop around the corner before heading into the station. He usually had two cups of coffee before leaving the house each morning, but in his haste he'd barely finished his first.
Joe visited the donut shop often enough to know the waitress behind the counter by name. Nancy Winslow was a great talker and an even better listener, but this morning he had little time for either.
"Hey, Joe," she said. "Coffee and a cruller?" She was about to pour him a cup.
"Make it to go, Nancy," he said. "I'm in a bit of a hurry today."
"You got it," she said, quickly preparing him a large paper cup of double-double coffee and a brown-bagged cruller. Less than a minute later, she handed them to Joe. "Here you go."
"Thanks, Nancy," said Joe. "The money's on the counter."
Back in the car, Joe fixed the cruller so he could eat it straight out of the bag while he drove to 22 Division.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Teeth"
by .
Copyright © 2000 Edo van Belkom.
Excerpted by permission of Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
