Beautiful Lie the Dead

by Barbara Fradkin

  Green’s thoughts were already racing ahead, wondering about Jules’s connection to a thirty-two-year-old from a “good family”. Jules was a lifelong bachelor at least twenty-five years her senior. “Any leads yet?”

  “Dead ends. We did the usual checks—hospitals, ambulance, accident reports—with no results. By all accounts the young woman has fallen off the face of the earth. Family hasn’t heard from her for two days. She was set to get married soon, and her fiancé and friends say she was looking forward to the big day.”

  “Banking and cellphone enquiries in the works?”

  Li nodded. “We should have that info by tomorrow.”

  “What’s the last known contact?”

  Li flipped through the file. “That’s the really interesting part. Jessica Ward, a close friend, spoke to her at 5:45 Monday evening. Our girl sounded upset, said she really had to talk to her, and could they meet somewhere for coffee. Jessica couldn’t because she was working an evening shift, so they arranged to get together the next day after Meredith’s work.”

  “That would be Tuesday? Yesterday?”

  “Yes. She never showed up, never phoned to cancel, didn’t show up for work either.”

  “Any prior history of similar behaviour? Or mental health issues?”

  Li shook his head. “Everyone says she’s pretty solid.”

  “What’s Jessica’s theory on the disappearance?”

  “She’s scared. Thinks something has happened to her.”

  “What kind of work does the missing girl do?”

  “Contract work for the government. Citizenship and Immigration.” “Immigration?” Green let his imagination roam. “Could there be anything there? Sensitive file?”

  Li chuckled. “No. She was in Haiti last winter after the earthquake, helping to sort through immigration red tape, but back in Ottawa she mostly drafts policy positions for someone else’s signature. I talked to her boss, who said she does a good job but really wants to get back overseas. That’s their plan after the wedding. He was going to work for Doctors Without Borders in Ethiopia and she was going to teach school.”

  Green was still searching for a connection to Jules. “What’s the fiancé’s name?”

  “Dr. Brandon Longstreet.”

  Green’s interest spiked again. “Related to Elena Longstreet?”

  Li looked alarmed. “Who’s Elena Longstreet?”

  “Big name attorney in town. Years ago she used to do criminal cases, but now it’s mostly complex appeals. Charter challenges are her big thing. She also teaches criminal law at the University of Ottawa.” Green searched his memory for long-forgotten details. Only two stood out. Elena Longstreet was as much a master of courtroom drama as of the law. Her regal elegance and sleek black hair captured centre stage whenever she was in the room. As well, she’d been a ferocious critic of the police for lazy and incompetent case preparation. If the police had fouled up a single step of an investigation, Elena would find it and demolish the case. Even experienced officers had been known to quail under her cross-examination.

  Being her daughter-in-law would be no walk in the park. But surely not enough to drop out of sight.

  Green pondered the other revelations in the case. “So we have a bright, optimistic young woman on the brink of an exciting new adventure, who becomes upset about something she doesn’t tell her fiancé and then disappears in the middle of a Canadian winter.”

  Li grimaced. “Gives me a bad feeling.”

  Privately Green agreed with him. Teenagers went missing on a whim, but seemingly happy, well-adjusted women did not. He couldn’t ignore the darker side of love, which slipped so easily into the toxic swamp of obsession, betrayal and murder. Dr. Brandon Longstreet would have to be investigated.

  “Expedite those enquiries,” he said. “And take a close look at the fiancé. Anger issues, jealousy, previous girlfriends. Also previous men in her life. Have you asked Inspector Hopewell for extra manpower?” Green had learned the hard way not to step on other people’s turf. Luckily Li had not asked him the reason for his sudden interest in the case.

  Li nodded. “She asked if you could give us someone to search Meredith Kennedy’s living quarters. She’s living with her parents at the moment.”

  That in itself sets the girl apart, Green thought. He was mentally running through the list of general assignment detectives when a raucous laugh burst out. It sounded familiar, but it was a long time since he’d heard it. He rose and peered through the door into the Major Crimes room. Detectives were unhurried, coasting towards the holiday season when loneliness, alcohol and too much family togetherness would give them plenty of work.

  A familiar fuchsia jacket caught his eye. It was a long time since he’d seen that either. Sue Peters was sprawled in her chair like old times, legs outstretched and head tossed back. Bob Gibbs had evidently told a good joke, for she was still laughing. The affection between them was palpable.

  A plan began to take shape. Green turned it over in his mind, weighing its wisdom. Missing Persons did not fall under his command and rarely would a Major Crimes detective be tied up in a MisPers investigation unless something sinister was suspected. But all was quiet on the second floor, and this case felt wrong. Staff Sergeant Brian Sullivan, head of Major Crimes, was out on indefinite sick leave and his acting replacement, seconded from Patrol, was over his head trying to keep track of the dozens of active cases currently on the books, let alone managing to give the detectives any useful advice.

  Detective Sue Peters was currently relegated to entering data in online tracking forms, a mandatory but tedious clerical job that would not provide her with the confidence and skill to return to full duties. She had come a long way physically in her recovery from a near-fatal beating two years earlier, but the fuchsia jacket and the hearty laugh were the first signs that her spirit was returning as well. She was not yet well enough to pass her Use of Force test that would allow her back on full active duty, but a simple, behind-the-scenes assignment supporting Bob Gibbs might be the perfect nudge.

  He called them both into his office, watching her try to conceal her stiffness as she hovered in the doorway. Li struggled to rise and offer her the only chair, but she dismissed the offer and stood warily just inside the door. Green had not missed the spasm of alarm that crossed Gibbs’s face as well, and realized its source. Everyone was afraid of being transferred out.

  He held up a reassuring hand and explained the case. “Bob, I’d like you to search the missing woman’s room for clues to her whereabouts and explanations for her disappearance. While you’re there, re-interview her parents. Sue can follow up the leads you uncover.”

  Peters flashed a grin, lopsided now due to her injuries. “I get to go out on the call, sir?” she asked as if not quite believing her luck.

  He looked at her in silence and saw her smile slowly fade. To his surprise, she didn’t argue. “There will be plenty of leads to follow up on the phone,” he said. “Interviews with friends, old boyfriends…”

  Despite her obvious disappointment, Green knew even this was a huge step for her. He was aware of the anxiety she was trying to hide. Peters had been alone when she was attacked, making inquiries in a rough bar while her partner was elsewhere on the strip. To ask her to make cold calls to potentially violent men was a risk, but he knew the challenge was crucial for her. The old Sue Peters would have bulldozed forward without a backward glance.

  “Sergeant Li is running the case,” he added. “He’ll fill you two in on everything you need to know.”

  “She was about to get married, wasn’t she, sir?” Peters asked.

  Green and Li nodded in unison. “Reason enough to disappear,” she said with another hearty laugh. This time Green sensed it was forced, and she cast a small, uncertain glance in Gibbs’s direction as she did so.

  THREE

  Sue Peters kept quiet as Bob steered the unmarked Impala cautiously through the narrow residential streets, dodging the piles of snow pushed aside
by hasty plows. She was marshalling her arguments for the next battle. Once they’d left Green’s office, she’d managed to persuade Bob to let her ride along in the car.

  “I have to get away from these four walls, Bob,” she’d said. “I’ve been staring at computers for so long, I’ve forgotten what a field call feels like. How am I supposed to get back on my feet if I don’t start somewhere?”

  She could see him wavering, so she pushed. “I can just sit in the car and observe the neighbourhood, make calls while I wait for you.

  It will hardly be different from the station but it will feel different.”

  It wasn’t really a fair fight, for Bob Gibbs never could say no to her. Not when she faced him square on and looked up into his brown puppy-dog eyes. She said nothing more while they were driving out to the Kennedy house. She knew he was taking inventory of the neighbourhood and mentally preparing himself for the encounter with the distraught parents. The initial police notes had described them as a “good family”. From a police officer’s perspective that usually meant nothing more than gainful employment and a lack of criminal connections. It said nothing about whether the father drank or the wife beat the kids, as long as nothing had landed on their police database.

  The neighbourhood wasn’t rich but had a certain charm if you liked the post-war Leave it to Beaver look—little houses peeking out beneath massive old trees, one-car driveways neatly carved by snowblowers, and handmade Christmas wreaths on the door. Despite being built in the 1950s, the homes were being snapped up by young couples eager to avoid cookie-cutter plastic houses and hour-long commutes from suburbia. Sue wouldn’t be caught dead living here. She wanted acres of land somewhere in the rugged Canadian shield west of the city. Hardwood forests, granite bluffs, a meadow for a horse, and lots of trails for the dogs to roam off-leash. She grinned at the image of shy, self-conscious Gibbsie and her lying in the meadow with the sun beating down on their naked bodies and not a prying eye for miles.

  Would she ever be whole enough?

  The Kennedy house came upon them unexpectedly, breaking into her daydreams. It was a red and white dollhouse sitting on a corner lot, surrounded by a trim cedar hedge. Cars crammed the single driveway and crowded the street against the snowbanks, making it difficult for Bob to squeeze by. Only once he’d parked up the block and had one foot out the door did she stop him.

  “Bob, I can observe much better if I’m in there with you.”

  “Impossible.” He didn’t look at her. “The inspector would have my head.”

  “Only if you tell him.”

  “Or the family does.”

  “Why should they? They won’t think anything of it. Two detectives look better than one anyway. One to interview and one to take notes. Looks like we’re taking it seriously.”

  “Sue, you know—”

  “I’ll be as quiet as a mouse. You know how hard it is to deal with upset families, plan questions and take notes.”

  She’d thought that would be incentive enough, but still he shook his head. She changed tactics. “Darling, I need to do this.

  I need to feel normal again, start thinking like a police officer again. How am I ever going to recover…?” She grabbed his chin and turned his face to hers. “How am I ever going to be a hundred percent?”

  That simple phrase proved the key. She suppressed a small smile of triumph as she followed him up the icy street, trying to disguise the slight drag of her left foot. The family would not want a cripple assigned to their daughter’s search.

  The snow on the front walk had been trampled by dozens of boots and as soon as Bob rang the doorbell, the door was flung open. A look of expectation followed by surprise raced across the face of the man who opened it. The loud buzz of voices could be heard inside.

  “Mr. Kennedy? I’m Detective Gibbs of the Ottawa Police.”

  The man didn’t answer. His jaw dropped and he stepped back to yell into the house. “Reg, it’s the cops!”

  A roly-poly sparkplug of a man rushed up. He had a crooked nose, curly silver hair and that Irish leprechaun face Sue had seen in dozens of small Ottawa Valley towns. Minus the jaunty grin and the twinkle in the eye. This man’s eyes were bloodshot, and his skin was bruised grey with fatigue and fear. Behind him came a dumpling of a woman with mousey hair all askew and the same hollow panic in her eyes. Others anxiously crowded into the tiny hall.

  “There’s nothing new,” Bob said quickly, and their faces sagged. He lowered his voice. “Just a few questions. Is there somewhere we can speak privately?”

  The Kennedys led them through the crowd to the tiny kitchen in the back, which was probably outfitted before Sue was born. Only the massive gas stove looked modern. Sue remembered from the file that Norah Kennedy was a housewife and Reginald was a chef by trade, although he was now a bartender at a pub on Merivale Road. It obviously didn’t pay well enough for them to replace the painted white cabinets and arborite counter.

  Two women were hunched over the small counter, making sandwiches. Reg Kennedy asked the women to leave then invited the officers to sit in the homemade bench built under the window overlooking the backyard. The father squeezed in opposite them, but the wife seemed too jumpy. She fussed around, wiping sandwich crumbs from the counter. Reg tilted his head towards the crowd in the living room.

  “We got a search on, everyone wants to help. We’ve lived here almost thirty years, and they all watched Meredith grow up. We’ve checked all her friends and the places she usually goes. Right now we’re checking along the route she would have walked from the bus to home. She could have slipped on the ice, and with the snow the last couple of days...” He broke off as if he couldn’t say it aloud.

  Taking out her notebook, Sue waited dutifully while Bob took up the interview. He looked efficient and in control. No hint of the stutter that sandbagged him when he was nervous. “Any leads from her friends on the places she went? We need to track her latest movements. We know she called her friend Monday evening. Anyone see her yesterday?”

  The father shook his head. “She didn’t go to work, didn’t call in sick. She never answered the emails and texts people sent her asking where she was. Jessica, her maid of honour, left her three messages on her cell and two texts saying ‘call me.’ No answer.” “Was the maid of honour concerned about something?”

  “Not at first. Meredith had called her, upset, and they were supposed to meet. It wasn’t like Meredith not to show up.”

  “Why was she upset? Did Jessica know?”

  “It was probably about the bridesmaid who quit.”

  “What happened?”

  Reg grimaced. “My nephew’s wife. She’s always taking offence, and I think Meredith said something to upset her.”

  “They don’t get along?”

  “Caryn doesn’t really get along with anyone—”

  Mrs. Kennedy looked up from her cleaning irritably. “Well, she’s going through a hard time, losing the baby, Reggie.”

  Sue eyed the exchange, noting the spark in the wife’s eye and the guilt in Reg’s. Crises always brought out the cracks in even the best marriage. Bob ploughed ahead. “So Meredith was c-concerned this might interfere with the wedding?”

  Reg glanced at his wife. “She did seem annoyed—”

  Norah sighed. “She was fine. Caryn would have come around.

  She just needed a few days to calm down.”

  “Did she have any disagreements with anyone else?”

  Both parents shook their heads simultaneously.

  “Any former boyfriends who might cause trouble?”

  At this, Reg and Norah exchanged uncertain glances before Norah answered. “She was engaged a few years ago, but they never saw eye to eye on things. Fought all the time. Meredith does have a temper. I think they were both glad to be out of it.”

  Bob paused like he was looking for another thread to pick up.

  “Any trouble with the current fiancé?” Sue blurted out impatiently. Beside her, Bob tensed, but
he was too smart to say anything. “Were they fighting too?”

  “Nothing the two of them couldn’t handle,” Reg said. “They really adored each other. You could see it in their eyes whenever they were together.” A look almost like longing crossed his face.

  “Like they were made for each other. If ever two souls fit together perfectly...”

  Norah grunted. “Perfect, right. Except for that holy terror of a mother.”

  Sue raised an eyebrow. “Trouble with the in-laws?”

  Reg flinched but said nothing. Doesn’t want to put his foot wrong again, Sue thought. Norah replied for him. “Mother-in-law. Meredith’s got her work cut out for her there, but if anyone’s a match for that woman, it’s Merry.”

  Bob finally found his tongue. “The mother-in-law doesn’t approve?”

  “Of Meredith?” Norah flushed. “That woman wouldn’t approve of anyone, but certainly not us.”

  Nose up her ass? Sue wanted to say, but she’d already stuck her neck out far enough. The preliminary notes from MisPers said that Mrs. Longstreet was a well-connected lawyer. Bartenders who looked like they’d gone nine rounds with Joe Frazier wouldn’t fit around her formal dining table.

  Bob was more diplomatic. “Different backgrounds?”

  Reg bobbed his head knowingly. “It’s good the kids are going halfway around the world. Gives them a chance to find their own way.”

  “What about the father-in-law?”

  “Dead,” Reg said. “Years ago.”

  “Violently,” Norah added. Sue thought she heard triumph in her voice. “That’s a deep, dark secret she never mentions.”

  Sue perked up. There had been no mention of criminal links from the past. She jumped back in. “What happened?”

  “No one knows, it was all hushed up.” Norah’s triumph was obvious now. Something to hold over the too-good-for-us Elena Longstreet. “It was back in Montreal. Harvey Longstreet was a law professor at McGill. Her law professor in fact before they got married. That’s all we know.”

  “Probably murdered by a client who didn’t like the verdict,” Reg interjected.