by L E Fraser
He tapped on his phone and they listened to Dr. Stuart’s voice message. The professor agreed to meet them at his home this morning at ten.
“I want to cancel,” Reece announced firmly. “I can’t risk my law career, especially with what just happened with Gretchen.”
Sam stifled her frustration and annoyance. “Talking to your ex-girlfriend’s parents isn’t going to tank your career.”
“An obstruction of justice charge will,” he retorted.
“Stay home then.” Sam marched upstairs to get dressed. When she returned, he had his coat on. His expression was as dark as the sky outside the windows.
In the parking lot behind their building, he headed straight for his car. She grumbled but climbed into the passenger side of his Camry.
They drove to Guelph in virtual silence, Reece grunting monosyllables in response to her questions. She had hoped that a decent night sleep after his confession would have improved his demeanour. Instead, the kerfuffle with the fake text messages had made him even grumpier than usual. Sam couldn’t blame him, but the damn nightmare had made her edgy and combative. She was exhausted and it took effort not to snipe at him.
An hour and a half later, they pulled into a long driveway. The two-storey house was plain, and the red shingles against the red brick made for a lifeless colour scheme. There was tons of space for gardens, but there were no flowerbeds. Wet brown grass ran from the sidewalk to the cement foundation. All of the windows had closed slat blinds. The ones alongside the front door were grubby.
“This is a waste of time,” Reece muttered. “And if Bryce finds out, he’ll be furious.” He glared at her.
She ignored him and rang the bell. A tall, slender, middle-aged woman with brown hair and a pallid complexion answered.
“It’s been too long,” she said to Reece.
“Mrs. Stuart, this is my partner, Sam McNamara.” He shoved her forward.
Sam held her hand out. “Thank you for speaking with us.”
The woman ignored her hand and assessed her with beady eyes. “You’re shorter than I expected.”
Not much to say to that. They crowded into a cramped foyer and Mrs. Stuart closed the door. They followed her down a shadowy hallway lined with portraits.
Sam paused to examine the gallery. All but one photo featured a gorgeous girl in various stages of development. Long blond hair framed a pale oval face with enormous brown eyes. The girl’s lips were scarlet bows of perfection. In one snapshot, she had her arms wrapped around a younger version of Reece. There was a possessive glint in her eyes. Reece’s expression reminded Sam of a trapped animal. This would be Sarah. It didn’t take a degree in psychology to glean that she was the favourite child—there were no similar pictures of her younger sister. A large family portrait caught Sam’s eye. In it, the proud mother and father flanked their elder daughter. Standing a few steps from her father was a younger, dark-haired girl with her head lowered. Angel had turned her face away from her family, and her hair hid her facial features.
A portly man with a full grey beard joined Sam. “That’s our daughter, Sarah.” Pride filled his voice.
“She’s lovely.”
“She was the light of my life,” he said. “It’s a mystery why God takes the good and leaves the wicked to prosper.” He studied her. “You must be the replacement.”
Not wanting to start out on the wrong foot, she said, “Sam McNamara.”
He nodded. “Reece’s fiancée. Shall we join them?”
She followed him into a bleak living room packed with dark, heavy furniture. A thin layer of dust coated a walnut coffee table. Arranged on an upright piano were more photos of Sarah. Even without Reece’s horrific tale of how Sarah had attacked Angel, Sam would have disliked her based on the calculated cruelty in her eyes.
Mrs. Stuart was sitting on a sofa beside Reece, clutching his hand. Dr. Stuart took the seat on the other side, sandwiching Reece between them. Reece sat with his back straight and his butt perched on the edge of a floral patterned cushion. His feet pointed to the door, as if he were making ready his escape.
Sam sat on an armchair across from them, feeling like an interloper. The Stuarts stared across the room at her. Mrs. Stuart’s expression was hostile.
“You said in your email that this is about Angel,” Dr. Stuart said. “Police were here yesterday asking about her. What’s she done now?”
“When was the last time you saw her?” Reece had to swivel his head between Dr. and Mrs. Stuart.
“A year ago when we returned from overseas,” Dr. Stuart replied. “After Sarah passed, I taught at the university in Edinburgh for seven years. A fascinating adventure.”
“Did Angel attend school there?” Reece asked.
“No.” Mrs. Stuart’s lips thinned to a slash. “We left her here to finish high school.”
Her response confused Sam. Reece had told her that Angel was sixteen when her sister died. “Who did she stay with?”
Mrs. Stuart scowled. “Angel didn’t have friends. Our family is in the UK, so we rented her a flat.”
“In our culture, Ms. McNamara, teens often study apart from their parents,” Dr. Stuart said.
In boarding school, Sam thought. Abandoning a sixteen-year-old and moving across the world appalled her.
Reece shot her a warning glance. “Did Angel visit you in Scotland?”
“Once.” Mrs. Stuart’s thin lips puckered. “She humiliated her father and we never had her back.”
“What happened?” Reece asked.
“I made the mistake of permitting her to accompany us to a faculty party,” Dr. Stuart said. “She dressed inappropriately and talked incessantly. She exhibited frightful social conduct.”
“You recall how she lied,” Mrs. Stuart said to Reece. “Well, she accused the dean of the history department of propositioning her.”
“Shameful situation,” Dr. Stuart murmured. “We put her on the next flight back to Canada.”
“How has she been over the past few years?” Reece asked.
“Stunted maturity,” Mrs. Stuart said in harsh tone. “The child psychologist was wrong. Angelina never changed.”
“You took her to a child psychologist? What was the diagnosis?” Sam asked.
After a moment of strained silence, Dr. Stuart said, “Mythomania. It’s a penchant for lying and exaggerating.”
“Was Angel tested for a neurological imbalance?” Sam asked.
“Unnecessary.” Dr. Stuart waved his hand dismissively. “The psychologist made the diagnosis when she was thirteen. He spoke with her twice but she was withdrawn and unengaged. Therapy was pointless. He assured us she’d outgrow it.”
You couldn’t diagnose a psychological condition after a few sessions. And she’d never read anything about patients growing out of pathological lying. Some experts considered mythomania to be an early warning sign of antisocial personality disorder. But often it was escapism in traumatized children with low self-esteem.
“Compulsive lying can be a coping mechanism,” she said. “Can you remember anything traumatic in your daughter’s early childhood?”
“Absolutely not,” Mrs. Stuart declared in a defensive tone. “Angel grew up in the same household as Sarah did. Our elder daughter was an accomplished girl with excellent grades and wonderful friends.”
“I recall Angel as timid,” Reece said. “Did you notice a tendency toward violence?”
“Never,” Dr. Stuart stated with a deep frown. “Angel is a meek introvert.” Alarm crossed his face. “My God, do police think she hurt someone?”
“How long has she been missing?” Sam asked.
“She isn’t missing,” Dr. Stuart said sharply. “Angel is a complicated girl who disappears from time to time. Our daughter isn’t a criminal, if that’s what you’re implying.”
Mrs. Stuart dabbed her nose with a tissue. “Angel likes to worry us. It’s thoughtless, but she always turns up. She’s fine.”
“Do you own a cottage or know of somewhere Angel coul
d go?” Sam asked.
Dr. Stuart ignored her and twisted his body to face Reece. “Why are the police looking for her? They sent two senior-ranking detectives to interview us.”
Reece caught Sam’s eye and she prevented him from having to answer by asking, “Do you have a recent photo of Angel?”
“We aren’t a picture-taking family.” Mrs. Stuart snuffled into her tissue.
Dr. Stuart stood, indicating the interview was over. “This is upsetting my wife. We never should have agreed to talk to you. Please leave.”
After they said their goodbyes and drove to the highway, Sam said, “That was unbelievable.”
“I told you it would be a waste of time,” Reece stated.
“No wonder you didn’t want to go. They’re horrible people.”
He frowned. “That’s harsh. They lost a child and their other daughter is missing. Give them a break.”
“A break?” She’d had her fill of Reece’s bad attitude. “What parent doesn’t have a photo of her daughter? I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked since they abandoned a sixteen-year-old. I can’t believe they just left her alone with no friends, family, or emotional support.”
“You don’t understand the family dynamics,” he said with a sad sigh. “Angel told outrageous lies that hurt people.”
“So you throw your hands in the air and abandon your teenager? Maybe Angel wouldn’t have fantasized or tried to garner attention if her sister hadn’t tortured and ridiculed her,” Sam retorted.
“Police suspect Angel of abducting six men and killing two,” he said.
“The evidence is conjecture and innuendo,” she said sharply.
“Bryce must have concrete evidence,” he snapped. “I thought about it all night. We’re obeying Bryce’s directive and leaving this to the police.” He turned the radio up, a clear sign that their conversation was over.
Furious, she gazed at the passing scenery. Sociopaths were glib manipulators. Last night, Reece described Angel as defenceless and withdrawn. It didn’t make sense. If Angel were a budding sociopath in her early teens, she would not have endured her sister’s bullying without retaliation.
Something wasn’t adding up and Sam intended to get to the bottom of it, with or without Reece’s help.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sam
REECE DROPPED HER at their office, warning her again to stay out of Bryce’s investigation. Rather than snapping at him, she tried to see things from his point of view. He’d been a cop for twelve years. His years of service had conditioned him to follow the chain of command. But Sam didn’t feel obliged to obey anyone. Deference wasn’t in her nature and Bryce couldn’t hold her actions against Reece. She was an adult, free to make her own choices and capable of dealing with the consequences.
Eli stood when she entered the small office. He stretched out his back and smiled at her. “Reece is not with you?”
“He won’t be in today.”
They’d once again made plans for dinner, and she’d made reservations at an upscale Japanese restaurant with tatami rooms where they could dine in private. It would be a romantic evening that Sam hoped would reignite the intimacy they’d lost during their weeks of constant bickering.
With a couple of hours to spare before she needed to go home to primp, Sam picked up the phone to call Margaret.
“Did the police take Bart’s computer?” she asked without preamble.
“Uh… I have his laptop.”
“Didn’t the detectives want it?”
“Well, sort of,” Margaret said hesitantly.
“Why didn’t you give it to them?”
“I, uh, told them I didn’t know where it was.”
Sam could almost see her blushing with shame. “Why?”
“I didn’t want them to take it,” Margaret whispered.
“I figured that,” Sam said. “Why not?”
“A girl in my sorority told me Bart was selling pot on campus. When I confronted him, he admitted that Angel made him do it so they could save money for an apartment.”
“You thought there was something on the computer that would implicate Bart,” Sam guessed.
Lying to the police was bad, but she could find a way to get Bart’s computer to Bryce without ratting out Margaret. The good news was that she’d have a chance to look at any pictures he had on his hard drive.
“Can you bring it to me?” she asked.
“Are you going to tell the cops I fibbed?” Margaret asked with trepidation.
“No, but we have to surrender it.”
“I don’t want my brother to get in trouble. About the pot, I mean.”
Dealing a drug that Canada was a heartbeat away from legalizing was the least of Bart’s troubles.
“Just bring it to the office, okay?”
After Sam disconnected, she turned to Eli. “What did you find out about Aleksia?” She removed her leather jacket and hung it over the back of a visitor chair.
“She attended Central Etobicoke High School,” Eli said. “The 2011 and 2012 yearbooks listed her—without a picture—but the 2013 did not. She did not attend grade twelve.”
She didn’t care if Aleksia had dropped out of high school. She wanted to know what kind of student she’d been and if there was any mention of home conflict in her school records.
“Well?” Sam said impatiently. “What did her records state about her?”
He shrugged. “I do not know. Her transcripts are not on the Toronto District School Board’s database.”
Confused, she said, “They don’t purge records that fast.”
“Well, there is no Aleksia Berisha in the TDSB’s system,” Eli insisted.
Maybe the Board of Education had removed her file after police arrested Incubus. It might have been a way to prevent an unscrupulous employee from selling confidential details about Incubus’s stepdaughter to a tabloid.
“What about a passport?” she asked.
“Albanian issued. Date of birth April 10 1995. She arrived in Canada in 2011 and left in December 2013. She hasn’t travelled outside Albania since. I also found her birth certificate,” Eli said. “Aleksia Zambak Berisha. Father unknown.”
Incubus had killed his wife in April 2012, a few months before authorities found his first lily victim. If Aleksia had returned to Albania in December 2013, she had been in Toronto when Incubus murdered Joyce.
“What’s wrong?” Eli asked.
Sam tried in vain to piece together what was bothering her. “Authorities discovered Natasha’s body twenty months after her murder.”
“Right, when the cops found the cabin he used to kill his other victims. What about it?” Eli asked.
“He told neighbours that Natasha had returned to Albania to nurse a sick relative.” She grasped the incongruity. “Why wouldn’t his eighteen-year-old stepdaughter realize something was wrong when she couldn’t reach her mother?”
Eli shrugged. “Teenage girls do not always have great relationships with their moms,” he said. “He could have set up a fake email account for Natasha. Aleksia may not have been interested in speaking with her mom on the phone.”
He had a point. When she was in university, she hadn’t called her mother once.
“Okay, but why keep Aleksia in Canada after he killed her mother?” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because Incubus abducted and murdered his first victim three months after he killed Natasha,” Sam stated.
“So? He did not take the women to his house. He used the cabin,” Eli said. “Maybe it thrilled him to come home after he mutilated a victim. Besides, what was the alternative? If Aleksia disappeared right after her mother did, it would be suspicious.”
“I suppose,” she said. “Maybe Aleksia suspected something was wrong and fled Canada with the intent of meeting her mother in Albania.”
“Well, she never returned to Canada but she does own the house in Rexdale,” Eli said. “A law office pays the property taxes. I had no luck in finding an
Albanian address for her.” Eli paused in thought. “She could have changed her name. You know, after police charged her stepfather with her mother’s murder.”
It made sense that Aleksia wanted nothing to do with her serial killer stepfather. The publicity surrounding Incubus’s arrest and trial had extended internationally. It would be awful for a girl who had just turned eighteen to deal with that stigma.
“Knock, knock,” said a voice from the hallway.
She turned to find Margaret standing outside the open door. Her chestnut hair was loose around her shoulders and her cheeks were flushed from the cold. She was hugging a laptop bag to her chest.
Eli’s mouth gaped and his eyes widened. Sam stifled a snicker. Margaret was a stunning young woman.
She took the laptop case and unzipped it. “Do you have any of Bart’s social media passwords?”
Margaret shook her head. She was staring at Eli with a puzzled expression. “I know you,” she said.
“No,” he mumbled.
“Sure. I’ve seen you around campus,” Margaret said.
Eli snapped the elastic on his wrist. “No, you have not.”
“Yes. You were with a girl. She had long black hair,” Margaret insisted. “She’s about my age. Twenty-two, maybe.”
Eli’s eyes danced around the room, never settling in one place. “I do not know anyone like that,” he murmured.
“Yes, you do,” Sam said. “I saw you talking with her outside the office the day we interviewed you.”
“I do not know anyone like that,” Eli repeated in a raised voice. His eyes darted up to the ceiling. He snapped the elastic with renewed force. “I have not been at the university. I do not know Margaret. Margaret is pretty. Her face is symmetrical. I have not seen her before.”
After Reece had told her that Eli had mild Asperger syndrome, Sam had done some reading and learned, among other things, that people with Asperger’s were often overwhelmed by angry or confrontational tones. Eli’s increasingly pedantic speech and agitated twitches warned her that a meltdown was imminent. She backed off and in a calm voice said, “Okay, we’ll leave that subject for now. Sorry, Eli.” Who cared if Eli was on campus? It was a stupid thing to lie about, but maybe he didn’t want to confess he was dating someone.