The Taken by Inger Ash Wolfe Read Free Book Online

stressful,” said Calberson. “Diving. Do you need us anymore?”
    “No,” said Hazel. “Thanks for everything.” When the doorwas shut behind them, she said, “Now we’re down to one dummy.”
    “I hope you’re not talking about me,” said Wingate.
    Hazel raised a sarcastic eyebrow at him.
    “You didn’t think they needed to know about the story in the newspaper?”
    “They’re scuba-heads, James. They don’t do well on land. What I want to do is talk to the couple on Barlow’s boat and see what they were really up to.”
    “What about this Colin Eldwin?”
    “Who?”
    “The writer standing in the parking lot?”
    “Right. Him,” said Hazel. “Fine. Get all of them in. If it’s a publicity stunt, it cost the county at least three grand; get each of them for dumping, maybe we’ll get half of it back.” She levered herself up to standing with difficulty. “But if you can get anyone in today, you’re going to have to do the interviews yourself. I’m in no shape to do anything but drink a Scotch and go to bed.”
    “I’ll start on the manufacturer.”
    “Your first dead end. Good luck.”
    Wingate had PC Forbes take her home and then, after his lunch, he tried to raise all three people Hazel wanted him to call, with no luck. Bellocque’s number seemed disconnected, Paritas’s went to voicemail, and when he called the Eldwin number, his wife answered and told him her husband was in Toronto for the long weekend. It was a bad weekend to try to raise anyone, and with the weather the way it was (bright and warm) the likelihood of someone actually being near theirphone was pretty low. Just in case any of them were known quantities, he ran the names through the Canadian Police Information Centre database, but CPIC came up empty on all three of them.
    After striking out on the phone, he spent some more time alone in the cell with the plastic corpse. Its silent, ruined form was eerie; it made his stomach flip to look at it. With the head and extremities missing, it had no identifying characteristics but the tiny letters on its lower back. He wrote the name and serial number down and went out to his desk.
    He wasn’t sure what the manufacturer would be able to tell him about a drowned mannequin, but maybe with some luck he’d be able to find out where a person might buy a Verity product. Was it local enough to suggest someone near Caplin had done this on purpose? Or was this just a dumb boondoggle: a discarded mannequin tangled in fishing net?
    He looked up Verity Forms on the web but found nothing. He tried “Verity Mannequins,” and came up empty again. A wholesale mannequin site had an ordering number in Fresno, so he called it and the lady on the other end told him, as far as she knew, there was no “Verity Forms” manufacturing mannequins. She gave him the name of a Canadian wholesaler who told him the same thing. Wingate put down the phone and squinted at his handwritten notes. Maybe he’d transcribed the name incorrectly? Maybe it had said
Vanity
forms?
    He went back into the holding pen and looked closely at the name. He’d not made a mistake. Maybe the serial number was actually a phone number … but it looked strange for a phone number: 419-20-028-04. He checked online and found that the 419 area code was for the northwest part of Ohio. Toledo,specifically. He dialled 419-200-2804, and a woman answered, saying “Yeah?”
    “Hello?” said Wingate.
    “Um,
Hi
.”
    “Is this Verity Forms?”
    “No, it’s Cynthia Kronrod. You’re looking for Verity?”
    “I … yes, I am.”
    “Do you know if she’s on this floor?”
    “I beg your pardon?” said Wingate.
    “If you think I’m knocking on every door in the res, you’re wrong, pal. Maybe you have the wrong floor.”
    “Maybe I do.”
    “Hold on,” the girl said, and he heard her cup the receiver. Her muffled voice reverberated through her hand. “ HELLO ? IS THERE ANYONE NAMED VERITY ON FOUR ?” There was a long pause, and