Beautiful Lie the Dead

by Barbara Fradkin

  Brandon sat back in frustration. The trail was cold. What had she been up to, and of all her friends and family, who was the most likely to know?

  Reluctantly, unwillingly, his mind kept coming back to his own mother and to the conversation he had overheard earlier that day. What did she know, and what was she determined to keep from him? Did it have something to do with Meredith?

  He was no stranger to relationships, but he had never before sensed reluctance on his mother’s part. He’d assumed it was because the relationship had moved so fast, from their first meeting eight months ago to the engagement six months later and a quick wedding planned over Christmas. A wedding with none of the extravagant planning and traditional trappings that the mother of an only child might want.

  He’d also wondered whether she blamed Meredith for his sudden passion for overseas work. Until last February, he had been pursuing family medicine at the hospital with no thoughts beyond finding a good practice once he’d qualified, but then he’d attended an information session at the Ottawa Hospital about relief work in Haiti. Speakers from the International Red Cross, CARE Canada, the Ministry of Immigration, and Doctors Without Borders had shared stories of tragedy, inspiration and need. There had been hundreds in the audience and at least a dozen speakers, but it was Meredith’s passion that caught his eye. She had been sent to Haiti by Immigration to help reunite Haitian Canadians with orphaned island relatives who had lost everything, including identity papers, beneath the rubble. She was supposed to stay a week but had stayed six.

  “We live a life of comfort and security most of the world cannot even dream of,” she’d said. “I can’t sit at Starbucks sipping my low-fat, double shot latte and texting my friends while in Haiti children sit all day waiting for a single drink of water. If I have to carry that water myself, I will. I am going back.”

  Normally he was partial to tall women with long, dark hair and sexy brown eyes. Meredith was a petite woman with an impish face and red hair. She wrinkled up her nose when she was confused, and her blue eyes crinkled shut when she laughed. But that evening, watching her on stage, passionate, angry, even tearful as she talked about her moment of revelation, he’d found her irresistible.

  Intrigued, he’d looked her up on Facebook and found out to his astonishment that not only did they share an idealism and commitment to humanity, but their favourite music was Beethoven’s Ninth, and their favourite book was Crime and Punishment. It felt like destiny. They corresponded sporadically through Facebook while she was back in Haiti and he was completing his residency, and the sense of destiny grew. She laughed at his jokes and finished thoughts he didn’t even know he had.

  Three months later, when she bounced into the coffee shop for their first real meeting, late as always, he felt he’d known her forever.

  They had talked without stopping for four hours, going through three cups of coffee and half a dozen scones. Eager to share their thoughts and explore their common ground, they had jumped from topic to topic, sampling their lives. Movies, university courses, politics, music, favourite foods, childhood fears and dreams. The thrill of discovery grew. By the end, when he took her small hand in his, he knew he’d found his kindred soul.

  Somehow his mother had been peculiar about this relationship almost from the first time she’d met Meredith. Initially she’d seemed to admire Meredith’s idealism as much as he did, but something had caused her to withdraw. Was it the whirlwind wedding or their plan to work overseas?

  Or did it have to do with Montreal?

  On impulse, Brandon shut off his computer and hurried downstairs to snatch his jacket off the coat tree. Juggling gloves and scarf, he locked the house and followed the well-shovelled path to the garage. The door glided silently open to reveal a large concrete room lined with neat rows of shelving and hooks. Skis and hockey sticks were propped against the walls, and bicycles, kayaks and a canoe hung from the rafters. His Toyota Prius sat in its usual spot.

  Normally he cycled or took the bus to the hospital. Even if parking and traffic congestion hadn’t been appalling, he would have made the greener choice out of principle. This time, however, he revved the car out of the garage without a qualm.

  * * *

  “Mom!” he whispered, leaning in close. “We need to talk.”

  His mother barely reacted, telling in itself, he thought. He’d gone downtown only to learn that she was still in court, and had charged straight up the broad stone steps of the Ottawa courthouse and into the courtroom without a moment’s hesitation.

  The lawyer for the Crown was on his feet, surrounded by a stack of banker’s boxes and thick sheaves of notes. He sifted through these as he droned on at the judge, who looked half asleep. Not so Elena Longstreet. She sat ramrod straight, her sleek silver hair glinting in the harsh court light and her expression one of a cat watching a songbird. When Brandon slipped into the chair behind her and whispered in her ear, she didn’t move. A faint furrow between her eyes was the only hint of consternation. Or disapproval.

  “Brandon, we recess in fifteen minutes,” she whispered back, her lips barely moving.

  “What do you know about Meredith’s disappearance?” He was aware of the judge waking up and blinking at them in confusion. Heads turned at the Crown counsel table, and even his mother stiffened.

  “Fifteen minutes!”

  “Is there a problem, Mrs. Longstreet?” the judge asked, almost hopefully.

  His mother rose, radiating dignity and respect. Only Brandon would have known that she was furious. “Begging your lordship’s indulgence, if the court would grant me a five-minute recess—”

  “Granted.” The judge was already on his feet, his black robe flapping behind him as he charged towards his chambers. The half-dozen observers, most of whom appeared to be lawyers, descended into chatter. Elena swung on Brandon.

  “I realize the stress you’ve been under, but surely this can wait—”

  Irrational anger swept through him at her patronizing tone, as if she knew so much more about life than he did. She was always protecting him when he least wanted or needed it. “He mustn’t know!” As if he were a fragile shell.

  “Mother, what are you hiding from me? About Meredith and Montreal!”

  For the briefest instant, she recoiled as if slapped. No amount of self-discipline could prevent the shock that raced across her face. But she recovered well, restoring a perfect mask of puzzlement and curiosity to her fine features.

  “Montreal? Who said anything about Montreal?”

  “Did you know Meredith went to Montreal?”

  Elena looked mystified. “Why would she go to Montreal?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you. I overheard you talking to someone this morning, downstairs.”

  She sat very still. Too still. Her eyes searched his. She’s trying to remember what she said, he realized with a jolt. To remember how much she gave away. He remained quiet, hoping she’d assume too much. However, she must have read the bluff in his eyes, for she shrugged.

  “Nothing relevant, I assure you. I’m trying to take some of the burden of this off you, so I’ve been making some inquiries through my own contacts. So far they’ve proved fruitless.”

  “But you found out something! You said ‘He mustn’t know!’

  What—”

  His mother started and reached beneath her court gown into her jacket pocket. She extracted her Blackberry, which hummed in her hand, and glanced at the screen. For an instant her features froze, and Brandon thought she even paled.

  “I should take this,” she said, rising and turning away from him.

  Fear surged through him again as he watched her face. Her lips tightened and she spoke just three words, “No...thank you,” before clicking the phone off. She turned back to the table and leaned on it as if she were drawing strength.

  “This may mean nothing,” she began slowly.

  He didn’t breathe.

  “They’ve discovered a woman’s body.”

 
“Where?”

  “Two blocks from our house. But they don’t yet know...”

  He heard no more, because he was out the door.

  * * *

  Dusk was descending as Green headed back out to the far east end for the second time that day. Jules was not answering his calls, and this time the gloves were off. Jules was an officer sworn to uphold the law, and he damn well would. At the very least, the cashmere scarf cried out for explanation.

  Mercifully the Queensway was dry, but the afternoon rush hour clogged all the lanes as far as he could see. Green flicked on the emergency flashers of his staff car and enjoyed the rush of adrenaline as he streaked along the bus lane past the endless stream of brake lights disappearing into the twilight.

  He had stopped briefly at the excavation site to check for updates, but progress had been slow. MacPhail, apparently suspicious of the body’s appearance, was determined that not a molecule of trace evidence would be lost in the excavation process and that the body’s position would not be altered. The whole scene was shrouded in a white tent through which spotlights glowed eerily. No one else, including Green, was allowed inside in order to avoid inadvertent contamination, but Lyle Cunningham, the Identification officer, showed him some preliminary photos of the woman’s bare hands and stocking feet protruding upwards from deep inside the snowbank.

  “What do you think, Lyle?” Green had asked as they hunched over the laptop screen in the Ident van. “Looks like she was buried that way by a snowplow.”

  Cunningham pursed his lips in disapproval. Conjecture was not in his repertoire of tricks. He preferred to gather facts, present them coherently and let them speak for themselves. In the witness box, it was a laudable stance, but in the early stages of an investigation, it was a pain in the ass. Thorough crime scene analysis could take weeks, during which potential witnesses and criminals slipped through their fingers.

  “Give us three or four hours, and maybe we can confirm that,” Cunningham said.

  Green did a quick calculation. “How about two.” As he spoke he was aware of the media pressing forward and of Inspector Doyle handing them empty platitudes to fill their sound bites on the six o’clock news. Media conjecture would be way ahead of Cunningham on this one.

  Two hours should take him to and from the Colonies with time to spare, but even with the emergency lights, it was past four p.m. when he arrived at the east end station. Jules’s office door was closed, and he caught Jules’s clerk just pulling on her coat to head home. She flinched at the sight of him. Mrs. Capstick was a middle-aged woman who’d worked for the police service for twenty years. In that time she had juggled marriage to a tactical unit sergeant and two daughters who played competitive ringuette, so she did not disturb easily. Perhaps she knows I’m angry, Green thought, and with reason.

  “He’s not in,” she pre-empted before he could speak.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.” She frowned. “He went out this morning shortly after you left, and he hasn’t been back.”

  “What did he say when he left?”

  “That he had a meeting in town.” She hesitated, and Green sensed she wanted to say more but had been well trained to respect her boss’s obsession with privacy. Jules would be a fair and kind employer but uncompromising in his expectations.

  “What was the meeting?”

  “He hadn’t marked it down. I didn’t ask.” She locked her drawer.

  “I’m worried,” Green said, hoping to draw out her own worry. “Something seems to be wrong.”

  She said nothing but buttoned her coat as if to signal the conversation was over.

  He drew closer. “Judy, did he phone you at all today?”

  She blinked her eyes rapidly. Plunked her purse down as if making a decision. “Yes, just to tell me to cancel his appointments until further notice, without a word of explanation. Two meetings here today and a speech at the local high school. More tomorrow if he doesn’t show up.”

  “That’s not like him.”

  “No, it’s not. But this week...” She paused, fighting her loyalty. “He has really not been himself. Perhaps he talked to the deputy chief and asked for some time off. In the five years I’ve worked for him, Superintendent Jules has never asked for personal time. But we never know, do we, what’s really going on with him.”

  Green murmured agreement, wondering whether to ask the deputy chief what he knew. But he suspected he’d meet the stone wall of confidentiality, and rightly so. He waited until Mrs. Capstick had gone into the elevator then tried Jules’s office door.

  It was locked. Of course it was locked. He tried the clerk’s desk drawers, hoping to find keys, but they too were locked.

  A metaphor for Jules himself.

  En route back to the accident scene, Green phoned the Major Crimes Unit and snagged Gibbs just returning from the Kennedy home.

  “How did the parents take the news?” Green asked.

  “Upset.” Green could hear the distress in Gibbs’s voice. Delivering bad news to family members was never a cop’s favourite job. “But they don’t really believe it’s M-Meredith. Especially Mrs. Kennedy. She didn’t recognize the photo of the purse.”

  “MacPhail should have more details for us in a couple of hours. Formal ID probably tomorrow morning at the morgue.”

  “You want me to take them there, s-sir?” The distress was stronger now.

  “If it comes to that, yes, Bob. But meanwhile I’ve got another assignment for you.” Green explained about the black pick-up truck and the stranger searching in the snow. “It’s a hunch. Find out the names of the snowplow operators assigned to that area in the past three days. Find out the exact times they plowed that street and what vehicles are registered to their names.”

  There was silence on the line, then, “Tonight, sir?”

  Green suppressed his impatience. As an investigator, he’d put in twenty-four hour days as long as there were leads to follow, and it had cost him in relationships and in subordinates. His best friend, Brian Sullivan, was on indefinite sick leave because he’d pushed him to do one last thing before he booked off for the day. Green hated having to slow down to allow for the demands of other people’s lives, but since Sullivan’s health crisis, Green had been trying to turn over a new leaf. He knew Bob Gibbs was anxious to get home to Sue’s waiting arms.

  “Whenever you can get to it is fine, Bob.”

  He disconnected as he was rounding the corner onto Maple Lane. The tent glowed in the deepening darkness, and the street was still jammed with media and police vehicles. Knots of police officers stood around on guard, but most of the curiosity seekers had drifted away. The temperature had dipped several degrees since sundown, and frosty breath danced in the lights that blazed on the scene.

  Green spotted two civilians standing in the middle of the road arguing with Inspector Doyle. He didn’t recognize the tall, slim young man dressed in a battered bomber jacket, but the woman’s silver hair and regal bearing stirred a long-forgotten memory. Elena Longstreet.

  He pulled the staff car to a hasty stop behind a cruiser and jumped out. As he approached, Elena turned on him. She was as striking as ever, but pale in the garish light. Her eyes glittered.

  “Are you in charge here?”

  “I’m Inspector Michael Green, Mrs. Longstreet.” He extended his hand. “I was looking for you earlier.”

  She blinked, and her rage evaporated like a dramatic prop.

  She frowned at him shrewdly. “Well, Inspector Green, I would like some information on—”

  “Is it Meredith?” the young man burst in. He looked even ghostlier than his mother.

  “I don’t know yet,” Green said. “Are you her fiancé, Dr. Long-street?” He didn’t seem to hear. “How can you not know? Just look at her!”

  Green eyed him thoughtfully. The man was gaunt and desperate, and his whole body shook with fear and cold. Green suspected he hadn’t eaten or slept in days. He turned to Doyle.

 
“Why don’t they warm up in your car while—”

  “I don’t want to warm up in the car! I want to see her!”

  Green nodded. “Let me see what I can find out. Meanwhile, you could both use warmth and a cup of hot tea.”

  “Don’t patronize me!”

  Elena placed a slim gloved hand on her son’s arm. “Brandon, the officer is right. Let’s see what he can find out.”

  With a nod towards Doyle, Green turned to head towards the tent. At the edge of the cordon he spoke to the log officer. “Can you get Cunningham out here?”

  “Want a peek, Mike?” came Cunningham’s shout from inside the tent. “Just watch your feet.”

  After signing in, Green ducked under the yellow tape and stepped carefully on the white paper squares laid down to make a path. Inside the tent, two Ident officers were bent over the snow, digging with trowels. On the ground beside them sat an evidence bin containing a purse, a boot, and a red woollen beret, each in its own plastic bag. Other bags contained assorted small items. Green distinguished a lipstick, keys, scraps of paper, a map, a pack of Dentine and two ballpoint pens, probably all from the purse.

  Beside the bin, a grotesque shape was beginning to emerge from the snow. The woman was lying on her back with her arms and legs flung up in the air and her neck twisted to one side. One arm was bent in the middle as if broken, and her coat was torn. Her hair, matted dark red with blood, was splayed out over her face, obscuring her features. MacPhail was easing the hair away from the wound at her temple, uncovering eyes opaque with horror.

  Green backed away from the sight. He had always hated that first instant when he stared down death. Felt the ugliness and horror of that last moment of life. He turned instead and gestured to the bin.

  “Can I show the purse and hat to the family?”

  MacPhail didn’t even look up. “Be my guest.”

  Green lifted both evidence bags gingerly and retraced his steps. As he ducked back under the tape, Brandon Longstreet flung open Doyle’s car door and came across the street. He took one look at the bags.

  “That’s not her purse. Nor her hat. I’ve never seen either before.”