Beautiful Lie the Dead

by Barbara Fradkin

  “So far, nothing in the system. I asked some of our old-timers, and they don’t remember a case like that. Normally you don’t forget child abductions, especially a beautiful little girl.”

  So true, Green thought. The cases involving harm to children stayed with you forever. Despite the negative findings, he still felt a nagging unease. People were hiding something. He was about to sign off when Magloire spoke again.

  “There is something else interesting, however. The recorded birth dates of the two girls, Meredith and Amélie. They are only a week apart.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t much, but enough to justify a visit to the Kennedys. Green was tempted to haul them down to the station for the confrontation, but restrained himself. They were frightened, desperate parents; the fact that they had kept a few pieces of crucial information to themselves did not change that. Besides, he’d always found it useful to observe witnesses on their own turf.

  He enlisted Levesque to accompany him. It was technically Gibbs’s case, but the two cases had blurred into one and he wanted Levesque to observe, and to learn. Nonetheless, he caught the faint look of reproach on Gibbs’s face when they left him behind at his desk.

  Green was pleased to find both Kennedys at home. Although the police search for their daughter was still active, the ground search had been terminated and most of the search team’s hopes now rested on tips. Norah and Reg looked as if they too were losing hope. Green had not yet met the Kennedys, relying instead on Peters’ and Gibbs’s reports. Reg answered the door, dwarfed inside an old, baggy sweat suit as if his very soul were shrivelling up. Greasy strands of thinning hair stuck to his scalp, and several days’ worth of stubble darkened his face, giving him a haunted look.

  Norah came up behind to peer over his shoulder. Unlike her husband, she looked determined to keep up appearances. She wore black slacks and a knitted red sweater with reindeer across its front. Santa earrings dangled from her ears. Green suspected it was she who had put the Christmas wreath on the door and the luminescent plastic snowman on the front lawn. To welcome Meredith.

  When Green introduced himself, a spasm of fear crossed their faces. He held up a soothing hand. “No news, I’m afraid. But I have a few new questions.”

  She dragged aside her husband, who seemed frozen in place, and invited them in. The house was immaculate, each table surface covered in knick-knacks and framed photos. A tall, genuine Christmas tree stood in the corner almost drowning in tinsel and ornaments, and a carved wooden nativity scene sat in the bay window ledge.

  Norah saw Green looking at it. “We’ve put that out every year since Meredith was a baby. She’ll want to see it when she comes home.”

  Green settled casually in an easy chair as if for a friendly chat, pleased to see Levesque slip unobtrusively into the opposite corner and take out her notebook. The Kennedys sat together on the sofa, trying in vain to keep both in their sights.

  “Do you have pictures of her when she was little?” Green asked.

  Norah looked startled. “Little? Why?”

  “She was born in Montreal, right?”

  “Yes, but we’ve already told the other officers that we moved here when she was very little.”

  “But you have pictures of her?”

  “I don’t see what—”

  Reg stirred himself from his semi-stupor. “We lost them all in a basement flood. Sewer back-up. That was the worst of it. Losing the baby pictures.”

  “Not a single picture?” Green said incredulously. He thought of the dozens of pictures of his children that filled the walls and side tables of not only his own home but his father’s tiny senior’s apartment.

  Norah picked up the tale. “Not of her first two years. That was what finally made up our minds to leave Montreal. Our house was near the lakeshore and was always flooding in the spring.”

  Green leaned forward. “I’m curious about those first two years. We’ve been trying to track your daughter as part of our routine inquiries, and we found no registration of her birth.”

  Norah blanched. She shot a glance in Reg’s direction but quickly stopped herself. She pretended to look confused. “What?

  She was born at Lakeshore General. I’m not likely to forget that day, ever.”

  Green shook his head dolefully. “No record of a Meredith Kennedy.”

  “Well...there must be a mix-up. That’s Quebec bureaucracy for you.”

  “There were no birth announcements in the papers either.

  Montreal Gazette, Star, La Presse—”

  “Oh, we didn’t put one in.”

  Green feigned surprise. “Why not?”

  “I—I don’t know. Reg was supposed to do it, but...”

  Her husband looked slightly green. “Truth was, I was afraid to jinx it. She was born ten weeks premature and we weren’t even sure she’d make it. Poor Norah was beside herself, because we’d tried for so long. So I held off the announcement, and when she was finally out of danger, it seemed too late.”

  “What about a baptism certificate? If we checked with your church, would they have it?”

  Colour flooded back into Norah’s face. “Oh yes, but no need.

  We have it right upstairs. Reggie, would you get it?”

  Reg was out the door like a shot. Norah turned to Green, her face collapsing in on itself. Her breath snagged as she tried to speak. “Inspector, why are you asking this? What do you think has happened to my daughter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But in your experience, when a young woman goes missing in the dead of winter...?”

  “Women go missing for many different reasons, Norah. Sometimes for a fresh start, sometimes to escape the law, sometimes to run away from an abusive or dangerous situation.”

  “But none of that fits! She didn’t need a new start. She hadn’t fallen in with bad company. Or…” Here Norah stumbled, as if on an unwanted thought. “Or-or broken the law.”

  “So what do you think happened?”

  “I think...” Her voice trembled and she glanced towards the hallway to ensure her husband wasn’t returning. “I think she’s dead. God help me for saying it, I think he killed her.”

  “Who?”

  “Brandon.”

  Green leaned towards her and lowered his voice. Could it be that the perfect son-in-law façade was finally crumbling? “Do you have any particular reason to believe that? Any information?”

  “No.” She shivered. “But it’s what they do, isn’t it, these boyfriends? When the girl tries to leave.”

  “Was Meredith trying to leave him? Did she say something to you?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. She said something a couple of days before she disappeared. She asked me if I thought she and Brandon were too alike. She asked if her dad and me had been soul mates and if it felt spooky. She seemed to be questioning things.”

  Reg’s footsteps thudded on the stairs, weary and sad. He reappeared and handed Green an old, creased copy of a baptismal certificate. It was dated June 10, 1981, at St. Basil Church in Ottawa. “This is when she was two and a half years old,” Green said.

  “She wasn’t baptised in Montreal as a baby?”

  Reg looked at his feet. “We didn’t have a church in Montreal. Since I wasn’t Catholic, no one would marry us. But we were young back then and it didn’t matter. But when we moved here, Norah... ” He trailed off.

  Norah seemed to notice Green’s glance as it flitted from the nativity scene to the large wooden cross hanging on the wall. She flushed. “I decided it was important for Meredith’s sake. I grew up with mass, Sunday school, all the sacraments, and I wanted that for Meredith. Everyone should have something spiritual in their lives.”

  Green thought of Hannah, groping her way towards her Jewish roots from the sterile consumer worship of her mother’s world. He thought of Tony, who sang the Shabbat blessings with lusty abandon and revelled in the magic delight of the candles and the white linen. All Sharon’s doing, just
one more debt he could never repay.

  He set the paper aside, clasped his hands and leaned forward. “Here’s my problem. There is no registration of Meredith’s birth, no announcement in the papers, no baby pictures before age two, and no infant baptism certificate. The Quebec health care system has no record of a Meredith Kennedy except briefly in 1981, but the Ontario health system has no record before that.”

  Both of them stared at him, unmoving.

  “It’s as if she didn’t exist, at least as Meredith Kennedy, before 1981.”

  Reg said nothing, but Norah erupted. “That’s ridiculous! It’s just paperwork, and what does it matter anyway!”

  “Because it’s the reason she disappeared. You lied to the police and let us beat around the bush blindly for a week instead of telling us right away what we should be looking for!”

  Norah half stood from the sofa, a red flush spreading up her cheeks. Tears glittered in her eyes. “What are you talking about!”

  “Where did Meredith come from, Norah? Did you buy her, or did you kidnap her yourselves?”

  Both of them recoiled as if the blow had been physical.

  Norah’s jaw dropped. “Kidnapped! Is that what you think?”

  “Lise Gravelle had a daughter whose records stop at the same time a little girl with an almost identical birth date appeared in your life.”

  Reg had said nothing. He seemed to sag into the sofa, but Norah didn’t flinch. “How dare you... How can you even think...!”

  “I just follow the facts, Norah, and that’s where they point. I’ve seen parents do far more desperate things in my twenty-five years on the force. I know the power of the maternal drive. I know how desperate the urge can feel. All around you, your friends are having babies, and even women who don’t want a baby, don’t deserve a baby, can have them. It’s not fair. With each passing month, the unfairness and the emptiness eat away at you.” Green could feel Levesque’s curious eyes upon him, but he kept his gaze firmly on Norah’s. Willing her to relent. “A momentary impulse, an irresistible urge, and suddenly this beautiful little girl is in your arms. Right now, I’m not concerned with what you did thirty years ago. I just need to know whether Meredith had any inkling before she was blindsided by Lise Gravelle.”

  Reg stirred. A small moan escaped him. “No,” he whispered.

  “Reggie! Don’t!”

  Draped in despair, Reg lifted his head to look at her. “Norah, I can’t do this any more. He thinks we kidnapped her. Sweet Jesus, do you want him to think that?”

  “Then tell me the truth,” Green said.

  Norah remained rigid, her hands gripping each other as she willed her tears not to fall. Reg took up the tale. “We adopted her, fair and square, but Meredith never knew. We should have told her years ago, but we could never find the right time or the right words. You read about adopted children never being happy, always wanting to find their natural parents, wanting to know why they were given up. Like they weren’t lovable or worthy enough.”

  Norah came alive, trembling with an emotion that had been pushed aside for thirty years. “Meredith was loved. We loved her like she was our flesh and blood, and we never wanted her to have that doubt. After awhile, we thought, why does she ever have to know?”

  Because back in Montreal she had a mother who loved her and never forgot her, Green thought. And more practically, because nowadays people needed to know their genetic and medical legacy. But he stayed on track. “Who set up the adoption in Montreal?”

  “It was done through a priest and a lawyer at the Good Shepherd’s Mission. They were good people, there was never any money exchanged, just a small donation to the mission. In exchange they found homes for the babies who were brought there. Mostly abandoned. We were told Meredith was left in the church sanctuary.”

  Convenient, Green thought. For the moment he forced his cynicism aside. “Were you given her birth certificate?”

  Reg shook his head. “Just the record of her birth. A paper that said ‘Infant Female’, her date of birth and a doctor’s name. Not even a hospital. They said she’d been born at home. Back in those days in Quebec, civil registration of births was not mandatory. It was left to the priest or minister to keep a record of the baptism and send a duplicate to the government. Lots of room to fall through the cracks.”

  Norah had recaptured her spirit. She thrust out her chin. “Priests had been quietly placing unwanted children with good, loving families for decades in Quebec just by a simple private agreement. Much better than when the bureaucrats start messing around.”

  Reg smiled thinly. “We were getting the run-around at Social Services because Norah was Catholic and I wasn’t. Father Fréchette was a godsend.”

  “But I thought you said neither of you was religious. How did you even hear about him?”

  Reg opened his mouth but Norah beat him to it. “Word gets around.”

  Green took a stab in the dark. “You were working for the Montreal Police in 1980, isn’t that right?”

  She blinked. “What? I—I...yes, for a few months.”

  “And you left when you adopted Meredith?”

  “Yes, that was part of the agreement with Father Fréchette. I wouldn’t work, and I would raise her Catholic.”

  “Did your work bring you into contact with any police officers?”

  She whipped her head back and forth. “I was just in the typing pool.”

  Green opened his own notebook and pretended to consult his notes. “Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, I can’t help without knowing all the facts, and all the people involved. You weren’t religious and you probably didn’t know Father Frechette from Frankenstein, but at exactly the time you adopted Meredith, Norah was working at the police station where a young constable worked who was closely connected to her mother. Was that the person who introduced you to the priest? Was it Adam Jules?”

  Her quick intake of breath was all the answer he needed.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  As Levesque drove, Green studied his notes. Bit by bit, he was chipping away at the mystery of the past. After a little more probing, Norah had finally admitted that she’d known Jules back in Montreal. The tall, handsome eligible young constable with the impeccable manners had been the talk of the typing pool, and they all vied for the chance to do his reports. “Not me, of course,” Norah had added with a hasty glance at Reg. He was always the perfect gentleman, always said a personal thankyou, and none of the girls received special treatment. But one day she’d just returned from yet another disappointing doctor’s appointment, and she was upset when Jules came in. He brought her a cup of tea and listened.

  “What a sweetheart! He never talked much, but you knew he listened. Afterwards, he never mentioned it again, but a couple of months later he asked if Reg and I would like to meet a friend of his.”

  Green was surprised by the story. He’d never known Adam Jules to have a tender side. He’d cared about his officers and done a lot to protect and nurture their careers behind the scenes, but rarely was a word spoken about it. Green remembered the touch of fingertips between Amélie and him. Something had changed in the man over the years.

  The Good Shepherd’s Mission was in Montreal’s northeast district, not far from the simple bachelor quarters where Adam Jules lived. He told Norah that he’d been volunteering at the mission every Sunday since he’d moved to the city, running the soup kitchen. Occasionally his work brought him in contact with frightened, desperate young women. He never knew where the babies ended up, just that Father Fréchette was very careful with his adoption choices.

  Norah didn’t know when and why Jules left Montreal, since he’d never been in touch with them since the adoption. Both Kennedys hotly denied having spoken to him in the past week. Curiously they seemed more relaxed and talkative once they’d confessed. Was it the relief of letting go of the secret they’d kept dammed up all these years? Or relief that Green appeared to accept the story? Norah wept unabashedly. Even Reg’s eyes brimmed with tears as he talked
about how the news would have destroyed Meredith. Terrified that she would somehow find out, they had sworn their family to absolute secrecy. Except for Norah’s mom, Reg said. That was the one person they could no longer trust, now that her mind was going. They were so scared she’d blurt it out during one of her rants.

  “Touching story,” Levesque muttered as she steered the car up towards the Queensway. “We did it all for Meredith.”

  Green thought of his own colossal mistakes with Hannah. “Even with the best intentions, parents make mistakes and find themselves in corners which they can’t get out of.”

  She shot him a skeptical glance. “You believe them?”

  “I’m keeping an open mind. Their emotion seemed pretty real.” He didn’t mention the role played by Adam Jules. Their story did not exonerate Jules from shady dealings, but it was far easier to think his mentor was facilitating private adoptions than running a baby peddling racket.

  “They’ve had years to rehearse it,” was all she said before turning her attention to the road. Green knew she was right. He had not even had to push that hard before their sad, self-serving tale came pouring out.

  Elena Longstreet would be a different story. She was next on the interview list, and as Levesque accelerated east towards Rockcliffe, he reviewed the questions he wanted to ask her. He knew he was going up against one of the foremost cross-examination tacticians on the Ottawa Bar, and he had to have every angle covered. Elena was not going to be bullied, outmanoeuvred or driven to tears.

  He’d phoned her as they were leaving the Kennedys to let her know he was coming. He considered the advantages of a surprise attack but decided the risk of her wrath outweighed the good. If he wanted any chance of cooperation, an honest, straightforward approach was best. She had been impeccably polite but non-committal on the phone when she informed him she could spare him half an hour. “I’m due in court,” she’d said as if to remind him how important she was.

  A sleek, champagne-coloured Town Car was parked at the curb in front of Elena’s house, the silhouette of its driver visible through the tinted glass. Idling chauffeur-driven luxury cars were such a common sight in Rockcliffe that Green gave it no thought. Elena greeted them at the door dressed in what he assumed was her court attire—a simple black dress to be worn under her gown and a string of white pearls at her neck. She gave Levesque only the faintest nod before turning to lead the way to the living room. She didn’t offer to take their coats, as if she didn’t intend them to stay long. Ignoring the subtext, Green hung his coat on the coat rack on his way past. Jules’s cashmere scarf, he noted, was gone.