Beautiful Lie the Dead (2 page)

He shrugged and carried on. Not his problem. He had miles of road left to plow before the rush hour began, and his hot soup beckoned.

* * *

Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green fought to stay awake but couldn't help himself. The heat in the deputy chief 's conference room was cranked up to keep the frigid wind at bay, and the lights were dimmed to improve the visibility of the PowerPoint presentation. A director from Strategic Support droned on as she read, almost word for word, the contents of each slide.

“These are the tenure targets for 2011 in each division...”

Green's eyes drifted shut. A foot kicked him under the table, and he jerked awake to see Superintendent Barbara Devine glaring at him across the expanse of blue folders, coffee cups and empty sandwich wrappers littering the table. He blinked and rolled his shoulders surreptitiously. Every muscle ached from shovelling a foot of snow from his driveway that morning, in the pitch dark of the winter solstice. He had begged, bribed and threatened but utterly failed to persuade his two children to join the fun. Five-year-old Tony was glued to his favourite cartoon and eighteen-year-old Hannah could not be coaxed out from under the covers. “Wake me when it's spring,” she'd said.

His gaze drifted to the window, through which he could see an endless string of red brake lights snaking along the Queensway. Barely two p.m. and the afternoon traffic jam had already started. More accurately, the morning one had never ended.

The door opened, wafting cooler air into the room. Superintendent Adam Jules knifed his gaunt form through the narrow crack and all too soon closed the door in his wake. The surprise woke Green up completely. His former boss, now Superintendent of East Division, was always precise and punctual, his charcoal suit pressed to a razor's edge and his silver hair perfectly in place. Today Jules was an hour late and dressed in clothes he appeared to have slept in. His tie was crooked and his hair had seen nothing but a passing swipe of his palm. His cheeks were tinged a self-conscious pink, and he avoided the questioning gazes around the table as he slid into a vacant chair.

At his best, Jules was a man of few words, but today he didn't utter a single word throughout the entire meeting. But more than once Green felt his eyes upon him. Mercifully the meeting ended at three thirty and the various inspectors and superintendents began to file out of the room. Jules hung back, seemingly engrossed in a study of the file before him. Green felt the man's gaze tracking him, however, and as if by serendipity, the two men found themselves face to face as they edged out the door.

Jules bent his head close. “Michael, a word.”

Green stepped into the hallway. In the distance he saw Devine gesturing him towards her office, but he pretended not to notice. Devine, ever mindful of career advancement, would want to be the first senior brass to get on top of the tenure issue, even if it meant trading away some of Criminal Investigations' most experienced officers. Having no such professional ambitions, Green sidled down the hall towards the elevator. Jules appeared at his elbow as silently as a cat, his gaze scanning the hall behind him.

“My office, sir?”

“No. Outside. Let's walk.”

Green hid his surprise. There was still a foot of snow on the sidewalks, and the blizzard continued unabated. Even Jules realized his mistake when he opened the lobby doors to a blast of sleet. Instead, he nodded towards a small conference room off the lobby. Once inside, he steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips as if in supplication. Green kept his silence with an effort. No one rushed Adam Jules.

“Michael,” he began eventually, “this is off the record. A personal inquiry. Is that acceptable to you?”

Green stared at him. Never had he seen the man so discomfited. In all his twenty years under Jules's tutelage, he'd never caught a glimpse of the private man behind the pressed suits and impeccable manner. There were lines that before now had never been crossed between them.

“Of course,” he said, not daring to venture further.

Jules flushed and ran his manicured hand through his hair. “In the past twenty-four hours, have there been any missing persons reports? Anyone unaccounted for?”

Green frowned at him, puzzled. Before his present post, Jules had been Superintendent of Criminal Investigations for over ten years, overseeing Green's Major Case Investigations as well as other criminal code cases. Surely he knew Missing Persons didn't fall under his command any more. Green had received the usual morning briefings from his own NCOs but nothing unusual had been reported, and there were no rumours of people lost in the storm. It was a cold day to go missing.

“Not that I know of,” he said. “But I don't get those reports.”

“I know, but I wondered...sometimes you hear...”

“I can check with MisPers.”

Jules bobbed his head. He straightened his crooked tie and seemed to notice his rumpled suit for the first time. He smoothed the creases in vain. “Thank you. Any accidents? Hospitals reporting unknown victims?”

“Not that I heard. But I can put out an alert—”

“No!” Jules stopped himself. “No, that's not necessary. I was just wondering...”

“What's this about, Adam? Someone missing? Someone hurt?”

“No. It's simply an inquiry. For a friend. It's not important.” He lifted his head as if relieved and for the first time met Green's questioning gaze. “I trust your discretion in this matter, Michael. If something should arise... If you learn something...”

Green saw the steel grey of authority return to the older man's eyes. Jules had drawn the curtains back down on his private world. Green found himself nodding, but before he even knew what exactly he was agreeing to, Jules had slipped out of the room.

* * *

Constable Whelan had just come on duty when the missing person's call came in. Despite it being the holiday season, he had expected the graveyard shift to be dead because a blizzard was howling outside. He'd barely made it into work with his four-wheel drive. Temperatures were frigid, the winds were brutal, and the snow was slanting in sideways sheets. Snowdrifts made the side roads impassable. No one, not even the most drunk and determined reveller, would be out tonight. For the second night in a row, school pageants and Christmas concerts had been cancelled, neighbourhood potlucks rescheduled and holiday shopping put off for another day.

Most of his fellow shift workers would be busy on the streets, handling fender benders and rounding up the homeless into shelters while he sat with his feet up on the tiny corner desk on the second floor dedicated to missing persons, reviewing, updating and cross-checking the active files against information from across the country. The two aboriginal girls were still missing, and so were the twins who were last seen going through airport security with their Iranian father.

The call surprised him. He logged it in automatically as he picked up the line. 12:32 a.m. It was a young man's voice, brusque as if he were trying to conceal his fear.

“I want to report a woman missing.”

“Name, sir?”

“Meredith Kennedy.”

“I mean your name.”

“Dr. Brandon Longstreet.”

“Address?”

Longstreet supplied an address on one of the classy avenues in Rockcliffe. Already the case was unusual, Whelan thought, pulling up the MisPers form on his computer. “The missing person is Meredith Kennedy, you say? Age and address?”

The young man's voice cracked slightly as he supplied her age, thirty-two, and an address in McKellar Heights. Not on a par with Rockcliffe, but a respectable middle-class neighbourhood nonetheless. The mystery deepened.

“And how long has Meredith been missing?”

“I'm not sure of the exact time. Possibly since Monday evening.”

Whelan did a quick calculation. “That's less than forty-eight hours, sir. What's your relationship to her?”

“But it's not like her. She's not home, and her parents haven't seen her since Monday morning.”

“She lives with her parents?”

“Temporarily, yes, but we're in touch every day. Often more than once.” Longstreet broke off, and Whelan could imagine him trying to muster his argument. “She wouldn't be out tonight. Not in this.”

“Normally it would be her parents filing the report, sir—”

“I said I'd do it. They're as worried as I am, I assure you.”

“And what's your relationship to her?”

“She's my fiancée. We're getting married in less than three weeks.”

Whelan's fingers paused over the keys. This wouldn't be the first bride to get cold feet.

Longstreet was ahead of him. “She's very happy about it.”

“No pre-wedding jitters?”

“None.”

“Anything on her mind? Any disagreements with family— hers or yours?” Whelan's daughter had been married the previous summer, and both she and his wife had been in a constant flap for a month beforehand. Caterers had quit over budget disputes, the bridesmaids hated their dresses, the hall had jacked up its rates. “These arrangements take their toll.”

There was a slight pause. “The wedding isn't the issue. It's exactly what she and I want—a small crowd, just close family and friends, held at my mother's home, buffet dinner reception afterwards. Non-denominational with a lay clergy, and even her parents are okay with that even though they're Catholic. Meredith isn't, at least not any more.”

It was a lot of information for the question he had asked, which Whelan found odd. He couldn't resist a smile as he pictured all the trouble brewing beneath the surface of this perfect wedding. The groom's mother masterminding the whole thing on her own turf, the Catholic parents pretending not to care. A Kennedy marrying a Longstreet. It was enough to make his West Quebec Irish grandparents roll over in their graves.

And worst of all, a poor dumb groom oblivious to it all.

He leaned back in his chair. “Have you tried her friends and family?”

A long silence hung in the air. When Longstreet spoke again, his tone was deeper. Angrier. “Look, I'm not a complete fool. I know this woman. She's a strong, capable, responsible adult. If she wanted to call off the wedding, she'd tell me to my face. Of course I've tried her family and friends, and none of them has heard from her since Monday at six. Her father and I have checked her computer, and she hasn't emailed or texted or posted on Facebook either. She hasn't been near her home, and it's after midnight in a fucking blizzard! So please take the damn report!”

Whelan could hear the gravel in the young man's voice. He knew all about fear and loss; he'd recently watched his wife lose a brutal fight with breast cancer. He relished the night shift so he wouldn't have to spend hours alone in the dark. Now he felt a twinge of shame for his own lack of compassion. He worked his way through the rest of the questions and asked Longstreet to email a photo before he signed off with a promise to be in touch.

As the photo downloaded, Whelan watched the screen with a sinking heart. The girl looked far younger than her thirty-two years, with red curls tumbling around her face, big blue eyes and a classic Irish turned up nose that gave her an impish charm. She was wearing an over-sized UNICEF t-shirt and grinning into the camera with a big thumbs-up.

This was far too pretty a girl to be wandering the streets alone at night, in any weather.

TWO

T
he sound of doors slamming and voices in the street penetrated Brandon's sleep. He bolted awake, disoriented and full of hope. Stumbling to the window, he peered down to see a CTV media van parked in the street and two crew members lugging a shoulder camera through the snow to the front door.

The blizzard had spent itself, leaving sculpted swirls of snow across the front yard. Winter dawn washed the snow in a rosy glitter. For once, he was unmoved. Awash in fatigue and despair, he peered at his bedside clock.

Seven fucking o'clock, and the vultures were already out.

He'd managed two hours' sleep after spending most of the night on the internet and on the phone, pacing the kitchen and speaking in low, urgent tones to avoid waking his mother. They had barely talked when he'd returned from his evening shift, but he'd felt her gaze upon him. There was doubt in it, but also pity. He kept his distance, not trusting himself to be civil should she reach out. Not trusting himself not to blurt out: “She didn't leave me! You never did like her, and you know it. You made her feel common, unworthy, tolerated only because I insisted.”

Part of him knew that was immature and unfair, a deflection of blame to avoid looking at his own failings. At his own small niggle of doubt, which didn't bear thinking about.

His mother was up now, and he heard her hurrying towards the front door to intercept the crew before they rang the bell. Reluctantly he headed down the hall. On two hours sleep, he didn't feel up to facing the media, so he hung back in the stairwell as his mother opened the front door. A microphone was thrust in her face. If anyone understood the media, it was his mother. She understood the drama—had used it often enough herself—but how would she choose to play this scene? On Meredith's side, or against her?

With the camera rolling, the media were the essence of respect. The young female reporter whom Brandon recognized from the local news introduced herself as Natasha, confirmed his mother's identity and asked if they could do an interview inside. Their breath billowed white around them, and his mother hugged her velvet robe tightly around her.

“Certainly,” she said but without moving. “As long as I will do. My son has only just gone to bed after working and staying up all night tracking down leads—”

“That's fine,” Natasha interrupted hastily.

His mother led them inside and left them to set up while she disappeared. In her absence, the cameraman positioned his tripod in the bay window and trained his lens on the loveseat opposite. Brandon knew his mother would be pleased with the choice. It captured the gentility of the room—carved mahogany frame, rose floral brocade, delicate antique lace pillows—and it went well with her royal blue dressing gown.