Beautiful Lie the Dead

by Barbara Fradkin

  “Could she have changed—”

  “No, it’s not even her style!” He shoved Green aside and rushed forward, ducking under the tape before anyone could stop him. He froze at the entrance to the tent, staring.

  “That’s not her! It’s not her!” He teetered, turned bloodless, and began to laugh.

  TEN

  Green arrived home at seven thirty to find Hannah’s backpack on the floor by the front door, stuffed to overflowing. The house was warm, humid and redolent of garlic and basil. He followed the sound of laughter into the kitchen, where a pot of pasta bubbled on the stove. The two women in his life were sharing a bottle of Chianti while they chopped peppers and tomatoes into a salad bowl. From their flushed cheeks, he judged they were well ahead of him, so he kissed them both and poured himself a glass.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “My last night before the descent into hell,” his daughter said.

  He paused to consider the evidence. Hannah’s favourite meal and her backpack by the door. “You’ve booked a ticket to Vancouver.”

  “The great detective scores again,” Hannah said. “So don’t get too cosy with that wine. My flight’s at ten p.m.”

  Sharon had been eyeing him with concern. As she handed him a green pepper slice, she touched his arm. “You look tired.”

  “It’s been quite a day.” He didn’t want to talk about Jules’s vanishing act or the ongoing mystery of the poor dead Jane Doe. He wanted to retreat to the sanctity of his cave, draw his family close and revel in their company for the short time until Hannah left. But at that moment Tony came bounding in with his usual shriek.

  “Daddy!” His eyes were shining. “You were on TV! Where they found that body! Is that Meredith Kennedy, Daddy? Did they find her?”

  Green hugged him, but a little pain crept into the warmth that he always felt when he held his son. Even here, in his kitchen with the pesto pasta cooking and the Chianti flowing, he could not escape. The fate of Meredith Kennedy was on everyone’s mind, even his five-year-old son’s.

  “It doesn’t look like it, buddy,” he replied.

  “It’s not?” It was Hannah who spoke, half rising from her chair in surprise.

  He shook his head. “This woman is older. We’re working on identifying her, but it looks unrelated.”

  “But where’s Meredith?” Tony persisted.

  “I don’t know, son. It’s still a mystery. We’ll just have to keep looking for her. Now...” He set down his wine glass. “I’m going upstairs to wash up and then you and I are going to set the table!”

  In his bedroom, he stripped off his work clothes and turned on the shower as hot as he could bear, trying to scrub the encounter with death from his mind. He knew he wouldn’t succeed but as always, he had to try. When he emerged from the bathroom, he pulled on a clean sweatshirt and jeans, and was just combing his damp hair when he heard a soft tap at the bedroom door. He opened it to find Hannah leaning on the doorframe. She averted her gaze.

  “You got a minute? I mean, before the Energizer bunny blows in here?”

  Green didn’t laugh, although the image was apt. There was very little private talk when Tony was awake. He stepped aside to let her pass. She perched on the edge of the bed and plucked dog hairs from the duvet.

  “I should have told you about this ages ago.”

  His heart spiked as his fears ran wild. She was never coming back, she’d applied to the University of British Columbia... He held his tongue with an effort.

  “I kept thinking, well, I don’t really know anything, it’s not like I saw where she was going. You must have found out more details since—”

  “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

  “I think I saw Meredith Kennedy. No, I know I—”

  “When?”

  He must have snapped, because she shot him a sharp look.

  “Monday night. I mean, it was before she was really missing—”

  “When Monday night?”

  “Must have been about eight thirty? I was coming home on the Number 2, and—”

  “What were you doing on the Number 2?”

  “I like it, okay?” Her voice took on an edge. “I was at the Rideau Centre, just hanging out with some friends, shopping and stuff. It was in that snowstorm, so all the transitway buses were taking forever anyway. She sat right across from me.”

  “Why are you sure it was Meredith?”

  “She had red hair and a red coat exactly like the one on the news.”

  His interest stirred. “Where did she get on?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was Bank Street. I’ve been trying to recreate it, but the bus was crowded. The thing is, Mike, she was upset. That’s why I paid attention. She seemed stressed and then she got this phone call that really freaked her out. I figured she was talking to her fiancé.”

  He tried to recall what they had learned about Meredith’s last movements. She’d arrived on the bus from Montreal shortly after eight p.m., so it appeared that she had travelled up Bank Street and caught the Number 2 west, towards her home. She had phoned her friend Jessica at 5:45, presumably just before getting on the bus in Montreal, but there had been no known word or phone contact after that. Certainly Brandon Longstreet had mentioned no call at 8:30. Green reminded himself to check the status of the phone records in the morning.

  “What makes you think it was her fiancé? Did you hear a name?”

  Hannah shook her head. “Whoever it was, they phoned her, and she said she didn’t want to talk to them. She said they just wanted to ruin everything and how could they do this to her?”

  Green felt a rush of excitement at this new twist. Ruin everything. A pretty strong sentiment, strong enough perhaps for her to drop her wedding plans and disappear for awhile to think things out? Was the perfect Brandon Longstreet up to something after all?

  “Did you see where she got off?”

  “Just before my stop. Roosevelt, maybe?”

  Green pictured the intersection. There were no major bus transfers at that corner, nor was it anywhere near Meredith’s home, which was about two kilometres farther west. “Do you recall what direction she walked?”

  “She was just standing there looking up and down, like she had no idea where she got off. Just that she had to get off.”

  Green frowned. “Why?”

  Hannah shrugged. “She just said ‘No, don’t!’ and she got off the bus.” She looked puzzled and worried as she studied his face. “This is important, isn’t it. Fuck. I should have told you earlier. It’s just I didn’t really know what it meant, and I was thinking about Mom...”

  He took her hands in his. “It could be important, yes. It could mean she had reason to drop out of sight.” He kissed the top of her head. “Thank you, sweetheart. This could be the best news we’ve had in days.”

  * * *

  Work had always been therapeutic for Green, and nothing gave him a greater adrenaline shot than a good mystery. When he woke up the next morning, he barely had time to dwell on Hannah’s absence, because he intended to get an early start on his long to-do list for the day.

  First on his list when he arrived at the office was to check for updates on the dead woman. Ident had little to report except that there had been nothing in the contents of her purse to hint at her identity. Suspicious in itself, Green thought, although the wallet and the IDs could have been stolen by a later passerby. To rule that out, Green really had to talk to the man who’d discovered the body. Neither Bob Gibbs nor Sue Peters were at their desks yet, however, so Green moved on to his next task—assigning a lead investigator to the Jane Doe case.

  A week before Christmas, the major crimes unit was short-staffed and in considerable disarray. The head of the unit, Staff Sergeant Brian Sullivan, was still on sick leave and refusing to clarify whether he intended to return to his post, accept a less stressful assignment, or take early retirement. Despite Superintendent Devine’s badgering, Green did not intend to pressure him. He w
anted his best friend back on the job he did so well, and he suspected that beneath the bitterness and the self-doubt, Sullivan missed the action. But he’d had the scare of his life, as had his wife. Mary was dead set against his return, and she was a force. If Brian wanted his marriage to survive, he might have to make a choice.

  The staff sergeant who was attempting to fill Sullivan’s shoes was a thoroughly modern bureaucrat who watched the clock, followed procedure to the letter, and took all the vacation and sick leave he was entitled to. This year it meant a two-week holiday to Disney World with his family over the Christmas break. He had flown out the day after Meredith Kennedy was reported missing.

  On paper, the sergeant on duty took over his essential responsibilities, but in practice Green had merely stepped in to fill the gaps. That morning as he consulted the staff roster, he saw that his newest, greenest sergeant was on duty, Sergeant Marie Claire Levesque.

  Levesque was not only green but she was cocky, stubborn and disinclined to appreciate Green’s meddling. With this case, Green intended to meddle. So far there was nothing tangible to tie Meredith Kennedy to the dead Jane Doe except the location of her body less than two blocks from the Longstreet home. Both Elena and Brandon Longstreet swore they didn’t recognize the woman, but with Adam Jules linked to Meredith’s disappearance in some mysterious way, Green intended to keep a close eye on both cases.

  Green had passed Levesque at her desk when he came in and knew she was just gearing up for the morning’s briefings. When he summoned her to his office, he saw a flicker of annoyance cross her brow. She left her computer with reluctance, picked up her notebook and strolled through the unit room. As always, she moved with the fluid grace of a panther, her long blonde ponytail swishing down her back. All eyes, male and female alike, followed her across the room. She leaned against his doorframe and cocked her eyebrow, sending a jolt of electricity through him. Studiously ignoring his body, he invited her to sit.

  “The Jane Doe in Rockcliffe—” he began.

  She perked up, her pout vanishing. “You want me to work it?”

  “If it comes to that, yes. The post is being done this morning at ten a.m. and I’d like you to attend. Ident will be there too, of course, and if Dr. MacPhail rules it suspicious, you’ll be lead.”

  She did nothing to hide her delight as she flipped open her notebook. “What do we have so far?”

  He filled her in on the few known details. “Detective Gibbs and Peters are following up on the snowplow operator. They should be coming in shortly.”

  She looked up. “They’ll be reporting to me, sir?”

  He hesitated. “You’ll be at the autopsy. I’ll keep you informed.”

  Seeing an incipient frown again, he held up his hand. “There are coordination issues here, Marie Claire, between this case and the Meredith Kennedy case, and between us and MisPers.”

  Fortunately wisdom won out over petulance, and she rose without complaint, slipping her notebook into her pocket. “We’ll all keep each other informed.”

  Progress, he thought after she’d gone. Next on his to-do list, Sergeant Li. He reached the MisPers sergeant at his desk. “Any word from Bell Canada on Meredith Kennedy’s phone records?”

  “Oh!” Li sounded flustered. “They were supposed to fax them. I’ll check.”

  “If they’ve arrived, bring them over to my office. There’s an interesting call I want to check. Anything else new?”

  “Oh!” said Li again. Green wondered if the man had been asleep. “That reminds me! Whelan tracked down that Bay purchase which was charged to Meredith’s debit card the day after she disappeared. It was made at the Bay in the St. Laurent Shopping Centre.”

  Green considered the location. It was in Ottawa’s near east end, far from any of her work or home haunts, but not too far from Rockcliffe. “What did she buy?”

  “A parka and a big bag. Whelan is thinking—and I’m beginning to agree—that maybe this woman really did want to disappear, and her red suede jacket was too easily recognized.”

  * * *

  In the past eighteen hours, Frankie Robitaille had barely eaten or slept. The night before, he had held himself together long enough to get dinner, supervise the girls’ homework, and tuck them into bed, but then he had sat glued to the news network, unable to stop crying. He had killed a woman. Not even aware she was there, marking her death with a mere bump of his snowplow. That poor girl! Her whole life ahead of her, about to be married, and in an instant it was snuffed out.

  How could he not have seen her, he kept asking himself. Sure, it was snowing. Sure, the street lighting was poor on the back roads of Rockcliffe. Sure, he was tired and maybe a bit zoned out. But he’d never hit anything before. The lights on his plow were strong and flooded the street for half a block ahead of him.

  It had been a tight curve, he remembered that, and it had taken him by surprise. Corners were always tricky and the visibility poor. The cab sat so high and the blade so far in front that it was impossible to see the road right ahead. The year before, a plow operator in Montreal had crushed an elderly couple to death as he turned a corner. A nightmare Frankie knew the poor man would never overcome. Even so, Frankie blamed himself. A woman walking down that quiet street at four a.m. should have caught his attention, especially with that shiny red hand bag. Everything else around was so white, so still.

  In the morning, he waved his girls off on the school bus and went back into the house. He forced himself to shower, shave and brew a cup of coffee, tuning in to the local TV’s morning show in the background. There was nothing new to report. The dead woman had not yet been identified but did not appear to be Meredith Kennedy. That’s no help, he thought, cradling his coffee in both hands and fighting fresh tears. Some other woman was dead, crushed in a few terrifying, excruciating moments by a ton of sharp, unforgiving steel.

  The doorbell rang and Frankie started, spilling coffee all over the sofa and carpet. He trembled, debated not answering, and sat cowering waiting for them to go away. The bell rang again, longer this time. He set down his coffee, wiped his eyes and headed for the door. Through the small window in the door he could see two strangers, one a tall, lanky young man and the other a short woman with frizzy brown hair. Both were wearing identical black parkas. Cops.

  As he opened the door, he pasted a mask on his face that he hoped looked calm but curious. Right off the bat, the man showed his badge.

  “Are you François Robitaille?”

  Frankie nodded but couldn’t find his voice. The cop introduced himself and his partner, but their names flew right over his head. “We have a few questions, Mr. Robitaille. May we come inside?”

  He stepped back to let them in. No point in pretending to know nothing. If they had found him, they already had him. His mind raced ahead frantically to figure out how much he should tell.

  “Can I...” He cleared his throat. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  They shook their heads in unison and sat down at opposite ends of the living room, trapping him in the middle so that he couldn’t watch both at once. The woman took out her notebook while the man leaned forward.

  “At 3:16 yesterday afternoon, did you place a 911 call from a payphone at the corner of Beechwood and Charlevoix Avenues?”

  He swallowed. He thought of his two girls, expecting to come home this afternoon to his bad jokes and even worse cookies, expecting him to be there forever like he’d promised when their mother took off to Calgary and left them all high and dry. He didn’t dare answer. Let’s see what they’ve got, he thought. Don’t admit to a thing.

  The cop waited a moment, then consulted his notes. “Do you drive a black 1999 Silverado, Ontario license plate KKLT 809?”

  The cops would know that from Motor Vehicles records. No point denying that, so he nodded.

  “Was it parked in the vicinity of Maple Lane in Rockcliffe on or about three p.m. yesterday?”

  He thought of the dog walker. Had she reported the license plate, or were t
he cops fishing? He said nothing.

  “Was it, Mr. Robitaille?”

  “Why are you asking? Is that a no-parking area?”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I didn’t say I was there.” Frankie knew he came across as stupid and risked pissing off the police, but he felt like he was standing in the middle of a mine field. One wrong step...

  The woman laid down her notebook and flexed her wrist irritably. She had a lopsided face and spoke with care. “You can make it easier on yourself if you just tell us what happened, Mr. Robitaille. We have a witness who saw you digging in the snow in the vicinity where the body of a woman was later found buried in the snowbank. We know that street was plowed only once during the snowstorm. According to the city’s public works manifest, it was plowed between three and five a.m. on Tuesday of this week. We also know you were the driver of that plow. Tell us what happened.”

  Frankie sat a long time in silence. He didn’t want his voice to shake. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t remember hitting her?”

  “No. I don’t know if I hit her.”

  “According to the pathologist, she’s got broken bones and gashes all over her body, consistent with blows by a large, heavy, sharp-edged instrument like the blade of a plow. The actual post mortem examination will establish that more conclusively, as well as match the shape of the blade to the shape of the wounds.”

  Frankie winced. He felt his stomach rebel, and he wanted to bolt to the washroom, but he forced himself to stay still. Barely breathed. “There was a snowstorm that night. Everything was white, and it was hard to even make out where the road was. And there was a curve.”

  “You’re saying you didn’t see her.”

  He nodded, trembling.

  “You didn’t see her at all?” Like she didn’t believe him.

  “Do you think I’d have left her there if I saw her?” Frankie began to cry. “I’m a family man, just trying to earn a decent wage for my kids. I’ve never done anything wrong in my whole life.”

  The first cop broke in. “We know that. You’re not in trouble here, Mr. Robitaille. You’re right, it was snowing hard, visibility was very poor and the roads in Rockcliffe are very narrow. We just need to know what happened. We need to know whether she was walking, what direction she was going in and how she was acting. Not too many people would choose to be out at night in the middle of that storm.”