Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (268 page)

Green was still deciphering when the man continued. “But I’m here and I don’t want to waste more goddamn time in this city that I have to. So get on with your questions.”

Green had been planning a more subtle approach, but decided to match straight talk with his own. “Why did she break with her family?”

“Her and her sister thought they were too good for us. Didn’t like putting their hands in cow shit at four o’clock in the morning.”

“Just the two of them? Two sisters?”

“Yeah. There was a brother who died as a child, and her mother wasn’t right in the head ever since. But don’t get me wrong. My uncle adored those girls, his little princesses, and he’s the one insisted they get an education. He just didn’t expect them to turn their backs on him when they did.”

“Where is the sister?”

“Lilianne? Who knows?” He waved a dismissive hand into the distance. “I heard she and Lise had a falling out and she took off to Ontario with some guy. There was always some guy.” For the first time his ugly features softened at the memory. “Pretty girl. They were both pretty.”

Green leaned forward to draw him out further, only to have the waiter arrive with a huge platter of hot, spicy foods. Denis recoiled in dismay at the display, barely recognizable beyond some hard boiled eggs and chicken legs covered in yellow sauce. He groped around for a non-existent fork.

Laughing with amusement, Levesque explained that one ate with one’s fingers and demonstrated by tearing off a scrap of flat bread and digging in. Denis’s face collapsed in a grimace, and he pushed his chair back, signalling for another Molson’s.

Green tried to recapture the mood. “It must have been hard on Lise to lose touch with her sister like that.”

Denis took another swig and eyed the food out of the corner of his eye. “Harder on her poor
maman
. After losing her son too. She had no friends. You had to drag her to family evenings, she never went out of the house. I don’t know, some kind of phobia? Used to run inside the minute a car turned up the lane. When the girls left, well...” He shrugged to express his defeat. “My uncle wasn’t much for words either, but I know he never forgave them.”

Not a happy home for a child, Green thought. He felt the same twinge of sorrow he’d felt looking at the photos of loneliness and yearning that filled Lise’s apartment. Yet maybe the father too had felt the same loneliness on his isolated, loveless farm. Maybe the departure of his daughters was more than he could bear.

“Did you ever hear from Lise? Know what she’d been doing?”

With two stubby, calloused fingers, he picked at the corner of the bread. “If you’re asking if I know who killed her, no. But one hears things—people come back from Montreal for the holidays with stories. I know she had a hard life. Dropped out of school, couldn’t keep a job. Someone heard she was in a mental hospital.” He dipped a piece of bread into the nearby pile of spicy lentils, as if edging into the meal. Levesque cheered him on with extravagant raves about the food. Green’s stomach contracted.

As Denis chewed, he sneaked her a grin and tore off a larger piece. His expression softened. “It wasn’t much of a life. My wife says the whole family is tragic, and poor Lise never found the dream she was searching for either. No husband, no children, no home or big city success to show for all the years she searched.”

Levesque burst in. “No romantic alliances at all, man or woman?”

Gravelle turned red, whether from embarrassment or the spicy chicken leg, Green wasn’t sure. “
Eh bein,
she was not a lesbian! Back in St. Dominique, she had lots of boyfriends. Her father was very strict, and it was difficult for her to go out with them, but no, no, she found a way.”

“You’re saying she played around?”

Denis struggled not to cough. “She was young. She was pretty. It gave her some attention, that’s all. I’m not saying she was a slut or something like that. Not like Lilianne. When Lise went to the city, it was for studies. She had big dreams. Pity that it ended like this.”

While Levesque was following up, Green had set his laptop on the table and opened it. Now he leaned forward to interrupt. “Were there any rumours of her having an affair with a professor?”

Denis had picked up a second chicken leg and was laying into it with gusto. His eyes widened, and he started to shake his head.

Then he stopped, mouth half open, and squinted as if trying to peer into the distant murk of memory. “The lady at the church, who made friends with my aunt, said the parents were very upset about something. Lise had got herself in trouble...”

“Trouble?” Green raised a questioning palm.

Denis shrugged. “I was young. I didn’t listen to that stuff much, but my mother was mad about it. It was like Lise shamed the family. She never came home after that.”

Green opened up his photo file on his laptop and pulled up Harvey Longstreet’s photo on the screen. “Have you ever seen this man? Look carefully.”

Denis sucked noisily on his sticky fingers before leaning forward to look. He didn’t look for long before he shook his head. “Never seen him.”

“Did you know Lise was a photographer?”

“What? As a job?”

“No, as an artist.” Green showed him some of the photos on Lise’s wall.

Denis reacted to the photos of the dogs. “She always loved dogs. Was good to train them too, even as a little girl. Dogs listened to her.” He pointed to the melancholy border collie resting its head on its paws. “That one looks like TinTin, they had on the farm. She took him everywhere. After school he’d wait for her just like that at the end of the lane.”

Green called up the first of the Amélie series on the screen. “
Bon Dieu,
” Denis muttered. “She had some talent!”

“Do you recognize the little girl?”

His eyes narrowed. “Pretty girl.”

“Her name is Amélie.”

He was still staring at her. “She looks...there’s something about her.”

Green clicked on the next photo, of Amélie smiling shyly as she reached up to an unseen adult. Denis sucked in his breath. “What do you see?” Green asked.

“She reminds me of Lise at that age. I was young myself, so my memory is not...” He gave a gesture of uncertainty. “But the curly hair, that little nose. Like it could be...”

“Her own child?” Green asked softly.

Denis gave a sharp shake of his head before pulling back. “But I never heard— No, I would have heard, if there was a child...”

Green’s thoughts were doing cartwheels, but he forced himself to keep his movements slow and his voice calm. Beside him, to his relief, Levesque had the sense to remain silent. Green pulled up the next photo showing the profile of the man Amélie was smiling at.

“Do you recognize this man?”

Denis stared for a long time, probably trying to make out the details of the shadowy face. “Is that the father?”

“I don’t know. Have you ever seen him before?”

“No. If that’s her lover, she met him in Montreal.”

“His name is Jules. Adam Jules.”

Beside him Levesque gasped. He shot her a warning glance. Her mouth was agape and her eyes were wide with shock, but fortunately she said nothing.

“I went to high school with some Jules, but I don’t recognize that name.”

“But you knew some other Jules?”

“Yeah, yeah, Lilianne went out with one. They hung around, you know. Not neighbours, but there was a Jules family that owned a farm over the next valley. Bunch of drunks and crooks, ran a still in the woods back of their farm. I remember the kids ran wild. You stayed away from them in school.”

“Did Lise ever go out with one?”

“I don’t think so. Normally she was looking up, you know? Not down at that gang.” His brow creased as he stared at the photo. “
Sacrifice
, I hope she didn’t get knocked up by one of them.”

Dinner was a tense, silent affair. Brandon and his mother always ate in the kitchen when it was just the two of them, preferring it to the formal dining room with its crystal chandelier and its mahogany table for ten. But even the small kitchen felt empty and the intimacy forced. As soon as he could, Brandon excused himself and went into the den to watch TV. Anything. An inane comedy, a hockey game, even
Canadian Idol
. He was on his third Scotch and was well aware that he should stop.

His mother appeared a few minutes later lugging a large, rectangular box which she emptied into the middle of the floor. A silver artificial Christmas tree slid out. She eyed it glumly.

“I decided it was time we trimmed the tree.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s almost Christmas, Brandon, and we can’t pretend time has stopped. These traditions can help keep us going in difficult times.” She paused then resumed more softly. “Believe me, I know.”

She stood the tree in the corner, adjusted its placement with a critical eye then left the room again. He glared at the tree, irrationally angry. How did she expect him to care about Christmas, to care about anything, when his whole future had been shot to hell? Then he thought of her last words, about all that she had gone through. Was she a monster, a conniver, or simply a mother whose only crime was to love him? He felt a wash of bewildered shame.

Setting aside his Scotch, he hauled himself out of his chair. He was just straightening the tree when she reappeared with two boxes of tree decorations stacked on top of each other. He caught her fleeting smile of delight.

“Let’s put on some music,” she said, switching off the TV.

“The
Messiah
, or Christmas Carols.” “The
Messiah
would be nice,” he said, thinking he wouldn’t be able to bear a whole CD of saccharine songs. He found he couldn’t even look at her, so he reached for the first box, determined to get busy. Together they trimmed the tree as they always had, in a yearly ritual of just the two of them. It had never felt so empty. He was grateful for the triumphant voices of Handel’s
Messiah
, which blocked out all possibility of conversation.

His mother always approached tree trimming as a task of perfect balance. All the lights were white and blue to complement the silver tree, and they had to be distributed exactly equally. The ornaments were delicate glass, some decades old. No plastic Santas or homemade reindeer. He found himself wondering what Meredith would have thought of it and felt almost grateful that she wasn’t here. She wouldn’t have argued, but she would have thought it dry as dust.

The thought shamed him again, and he walked over to pick up his Scotch glass. As a soft alto aria began, his mother selected a clear glass angel. With great care, she reached to hang it.

“Brandon.” Her voice in the quiet made him jump. “We need to do something about the wedding.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“There’s still plenty of time. Anything could happen.”

She moved the angel to another branch and studied the effect.

“Darling, she’s not coming back.”

“We don’t know that.” He paced over to the window, feeling precarious. “We don’t know where she is. Maybe—”

She turned from the tree to face him. “I don’t know how else to say this. I’ve been trying to let you have hope—”

“Then let me, damn it. How can I tell her, when she walks through that door in a week, a month, or a year from now, that I gave up on her less than a week after she went missing!”

He realized he was shouting when she held up her hand. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were sad. “Brandon, in this cold, I think she’s—”

“Don’t! This is
my
girlfriend.
My
wedding. Don’t you dare cancel a thing! If I have to on the day of the wedding, I’ll call every single guest—”

The phone rang. They both froze, staring at it as they had every single time in the past week. His mother reacted first, snatching it up from its cradle in the hall. He heard the quick disappointment in her voice.

“Oh! Hello.” Her tone dropped as she turned her back. By the time he made it to the hall, she was speaking in a low, urgent voice. “No, that’s best. Yes... Yes... Don’t worry about him.”

He stepped closer just as she hung up and turned, startled at the sight of him. She snatched her coat and began to pull on her boots. “That was an old friend. I’m going out for awhile, but I won’t be late. I promise.”

He should have stopped her. Grabbed her, shaken her and demanded answers. But the distress on her face stopped him in his tracks long enough for her to slip out the door. She left without so much as a glance in the mirror to check her appearance. For his mother, that was unheard of.

He went back into the empty living room. Music filled the room, building towards the triumphant Hallelujah chorus. Nerves jangling, he switched it off. In the unnatural silence, he took a last look at the perfect, symmetrical tree before heading upstairs. As always, he phoned Meredith’s cell. Still straight to voicemail. Flipped on his computer to check online. First his Facebook page, depressed to see the stream of mindless trivia posted by people he barely knew. His wall was full of inquiries from concerned friends. Next he checked his email. Spam ads, notices, six real messages containing the same questions from friends. Most were urging him to call them, but one tactlessly asked if the wedding was off.

There was one name he didn’t recognize. Yourgirl. He wondered whether it was an online sex invitation until he clicked on it. One word.

“Safe.”

TWENTY-TWO

Green had barely left the restaurant when he dialled Magloire. The big detective tried to sound cheerful, but Green could hear his enthusiasm waning. He glanced at his watch. Nearly seven o’clock. He felt a stab of guilt.

“Jean Pierre, sorry to disturb you at home. Tomorrow when you get to work—”

“I’m off tomorrow.” He mustered a chuckle. “My reward because I chased you around all weekend.”

“Okay, well, whoever is doing the follow up. I have some information that will make the background check on Lise Gravelle easier. Remember you were going to check if she had any children?

I’ve narrowed down the date. See if she had a baby girl named Amélie sometime in 1978 or early 1979. March at the latest.”