1
BEAUTIFUL LIE THE DEAD
An Inspector Green Mystery
by Barbara Fradkin
Chapter 1
To Hannah Green, the Number 2 bus
was the lifeblood of the city, belching oily fumes as it rumbled along the
narrow streets of the inner city. On Ottawa’s transit planning chart, it was
supposed to provide a link between two major shopping malls, the Rideau Centre
at the heart of downtown and Bayshore Shopping Centre in the west. But it was
the whacky journey in between that Hannah loved, first passing the gingerbread
Victorian renos of Centretown, then the spice-laden clamour of Chinatown and
the thrift shops of Hintonburg before it skulked like a smelly, overweight bag
lady into the trendy kitsch of Westboro.
On
Monday night the weather was working itself up into one mother of a snowstorm,
adding to the fun. Hannah loved watching the people as they clambered aboard in
a swirl of snow, juggling Christmas shopping bags and yanking their mittens off
with their teeth so they could fish into their pockets for change or a bus
pass. She loved reading the clues they gave away, a weird habit she’d probably
gotten from her father, the bigshot detective. The student with the
three-hundred dollar Gore-tex jacket and the swagger in his step would probably
get off in Westboro, or worse in her own neighbourhood of Highland Park just to
the west of it. The old Chinese lady wearing a long woollen coat, a thousand
mismatched scarves and a huge brown vinyl sac was going shopping at the Asian
grocery store, and the teenage mother with the neon green ski jacket would
wrestle her second-hand stroller and her sleeping baby down the steps into a
snowbank outside the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store.
Sometimes
the people surprised her. Sometimes the tall, classy African family would not
get off at the Ethiopian restaurant but at the library nearby. Sometimes the
boozy trio of loudmouths whom she had pegged for the Royal Oak would head off
instead to the stone church that hogged an entire block among the funky old
stores of Hintonburg.
And
sometimes, like the young woman who flopped down in the seat across from her,
they confounded her. The woman had boarded the bus at the corner of Bank and
Laurier Streets, in the middle of the business district. She looked like a
fashion natural. Long tumbling hair a shade of burnt red that you couldn’t buy
in a bottle, perfect nails buffed to a natural shine. No make-up, but with
cheekbones like that, who needed it?
Hannah
would have guessed high-end civil servant, except that it was
But
her expression suggested a different story. She leaped aboard, wide-eyed and
jumpy like someone high on coke. Her fingers didn’t work; she couldn’t open her
purse, couldn’t pick up change. Hannah had been there enough times to recognize
the signs. Even when the woman yanked her leather gloves off with her teeth,
she took forever to snag the toonie at the bottom of her purse. And then it
flew from her fingers and skittered across the floor.
“Oh
fuckety fuck shit!” she wailed, shocking even Hannah, who said much worse
herself before she even got out of bed in the morning. The suede jacket and the
high boots went better with a ladylike “oh pooh!”
A
dozen fingers groped on the floor to retrieve the coin for her, but among them
Hannah noticed only the woman’s. There was a rock the size of Gibraltar on her
fourth finger that caught every ray of feeble lighting inside the bus. She
looked at the woman again. As rich as she might be, she had obviously snagged
someone way richer.
So
why did she look like she’d just witnessed the end of the world?
Having
finally plunked the money in the slot and picked up her transfer, the woman
stumbled over a stroller, two backpacks and a walker in the aisle, not seeming
to see them as she headed for the one empty seat on the bus, across from
Hannah. She flounced down, flipped back her snowy hood, and shook her hair
loose. Long auburn curls flew past Hannah’s face. She seemed to be trying to
get herself together. Took a deep breath, shut her eyes and pressed her fingers
to her temples.
The
drama over, Hannah turned her attention to the next challenge. Where would the
woman get off? Not too far west, or she would have taken a transitway bus. If
you wanted to get anywhere in this weather and you didn’t want the grime and
dejection of the masses sticking to your soul, you took the rapid transitway.
Hannah was betting on one of the trendy high-rise condos in Centretown, but
when the bus trundled west past Bronson Avenue, she switched her bets to the
Civic Hospital area. It was full of upscale homes where lawyers and bureaucrats
paid for the privilege of being in town. But the bus inched past Holland Avenue
and elegant Island Park Drive without a flicker of interest on the woman’s
part.
A
cellphone trilled, and the woman’s eyes flew open. After much rummaging in her
humungous bag, she pulled out a Blackberry. She stared at the Call Display and
seemed to hesitate, but when it rang again, the passengers around her scowled and
she punched a button impatiently.
“I
don’t want to talk to you,” she hissed. She gave the person two seconds to
respond before whipping her head back and forth. “I don’t care, I don’t care!”
Trouble
in fiancéland, Hannah thought, vaguely disappointed. There was no
life-shattering crisis, no grand tragedy, just pre-wedding hysterics. Maybe Mr.
Rock-of-Gibraltar had hired a photographer without consulting her.
“It’s
not true! You just want to ruin everything!”
Not
the photographer, then, Hannah decided, intrigued by this new mystery. What
besides sex could ruin everything?
“How
could you do this to me? Oh my God, why?” The woman pressed her hand to her
mouth, crying softly. Hannah felt a twinge of pity. Definitely sex. “It makes
me sick to... No! Don’t! Fuck!” The woman glanced out the window. The bus was
just leaving the shopping bustle of Westboro and entering the residential
neighbourhood where Hannah lived. Abruptly the woman shoved her Blackberry into
her purse, leaped up and dashed to the rear exit. Hannah had one last glimpse
of her standing on the street corner, juggling gloves, hat and purse. She was
peering through the blowing snow, looking bewildered and lost.
As
if she had no idea where she was, or where she was going.
*
* *
By
He
could always sleep once the snowfall was over and all the streets were cleared
in his quadrant. The main arteries had been done, as had the bus routes. He was
doing the side streets now, and his big yellow snow plow was the only machine
in the quiet residential grid he’d been assigned. Up one street, around the
corner and down the next, his massive curved plow spewing the snow up into a
neat bank along the side of the road. The monotony was broken only by the
occasional car parked by the curb.
It
was his favourite time to plow, because no one was out. The quiet was unreal.
The wind had eased up and the snow was falling softly through the dim yellow
halos of the street lamps, cloaking the ground in a white glitter that was
almost magical. Christmas lights lit up the front yards, smudges of red and
blue in the soft white snow. The roads dipped and twisted, full of surprise
sights. Frankie smiled as he steered the big rig around a corner. His mind
drifted.
The
curve was sharper than he expected and he had to fight to get the plow around
the corner. The bump barely registered. A mere nudge of his steering wheel and
a tremor through his floor. He’d hit something buried under the snow, possibly
a garbage bin or a kid’s sled forgotten outside. He peered in his rear view
mirror and at first could distinguish nothing in the unbroken berm of white
snow he had banked along the curb. Maybe a flash of something in the feeble
street light. Orange or red, like a kid’s plastic toy.
He
shrugged and carried on. Not his problem. He had miles of road left to plow
before the rush hour began, and his hot soup beckoned.
* *
*
Ottawa Police Inspector Michael
Green fought to stay awake but couldn’t help himself. The heat in the deputy
chief’s conference room was cranked up to keep the frigid wind at bay, and the
lights were dimmed to improve the visibility of the PowerPoint presentation. A
director from Strategic Support droned on as she read, almost word for word,
the contents of each slide.
“These
are the tenure targets for 2011 in each division...”
Green’s
eyes drifted shut. A foot kicked him under the table, and he jerked awake to
see Superintendent Barbara Devine glaring at him across the expanse of blue
folders, coffee cups and empty sandwich wrappers littering the table. He
blinked and rolled his shoulders surreptitiously. Every muscle ached from
shovelling a foot of snow from his driveway that morning, in the pitch dark of
the winter solstice. He had begged, bribed and threatened but utterly failed to
persuade his two children to join the fun. Five-year-old Tony was glued to his
favourite cartoon and eighteen-year-old Hannah could not be coaxed out from
under the covers. “Wake me when it’s spring,” she’d said.
His
gaze drifted to the window, through which he could see an endless string of red
brake lights snaking along the Queensway. Barely two p.m. and the afternoon
traffic jam had already started. More accurately, the morning one had never
ended.
The
door opened, wafting cooler air into the room. Superintendent Adam Jules knifed
his gaunt form through the narrow crack and all too soon closed the door in his
wake. The surprise woke Green up completely. His former boss, now
Superintendent of East Division, was always precise and punctual, his charcoal
suit pressed to a razor’s edge and his silver hair perfectly in place. Today
Jules was an hour late and dressed in clothes he appeared to have slept in. His
tie was crooked and his hair had seen nothing but a passing swipe of his palm.
His cheeks were tinged a self-conscious pink, and he avoided the questioning
gazes around the table as he slid into a vacant chair.
At
his best, Jules was a man of few words, but today he didn’t utter a single word
throughout the entire meeting. But more than once Green felt his eyes upon him.
Mercifully the meeting ended at
Jules
bent his head close. “Michael, a word.”
Green
stepped into the hallway. In the distance he saw Devine gesturing him towards
her office, but he pretended not to notice. Devine, ever mindful of career
advancement, would want to be the first senior brass to get on top of the
tenure issue, even if it meant trading away some of Criminal Investigations’
most experienced officers. Having no such professional ambitions, Green sidled
down the hall towards the elevator. Jules appeared at his elbow as silently as
a cat, his gaze scanning the hall behind him.
“My office, sir?”
“No.
Outside. Let’s walk.”
Green
hid his surprise. There was still a foot of snow on the sidewalks, and the
blizzard continued unabated. Even Jules realized his mistake when he opened the
lobby doors to a blast of sleet. Instead, he nodded towards a small conference
room off the lobby. Once inside, he steepled his fingers and pressed them to
his lips as if in supplication. Green kept his silence with an effort. No one
rushed Adam Jules.
“Michael,”
he began eventually. “This is off the record. A personal inquiry. Is that
acceptable to you?”
Green
stared at him. Never had he seen the man so discomfited. In all his twenty
years under Jules’s tutelage, he’d never caught a glimpse of the private man
behind the pressed suits and impeccable manner. There were lines that before
now had never been crossed between them.
“Of
course,” he said, not daring to venture further.
Jules
flushed and ran his manicured hand through his hair. “In the past twenty-four
hours, have there been any missing persons reports? Anyone unaccounted for?”
Green
frowned at him, puzzled. Before his present post, Jules had been Superintendent
of Criminal Investigations for over ten years, overseeing Green’s Major Case
Investigations as well as other criminal code cases. Surely he knew Missing
Persons didn’t fall under his command any more. Green had received the usual
morning briefings from his own NCOs but nothing unusual had been reported, and
there were no rumours of people lost in the storm. It was a cold day to go
missing.
“Not
that I know of,” he said. “But I don’t get those reports.”
“I
know, but I wondered...sometimes you hear...”
“I
can check with MisPers.”
Jules
bobbed his head. He straightened his crooked tie and seemed to notice his
rumpled suit for the first time. He smoothed the creases in vain. “Thank you.
Any accidents? Hospitals reporting unknown victims?”
“Not
that I heard. But I can put out an alert—”
“No!”
Jules stopped himself. “No, that’s not necessary. I was just wondering...”
“What’s
this about, Adam? Someone missing? Someone hurt?”
“No.
It’s simply an inquiry. For a friend. It’s not important.” He lifted his head
as if relieved and for the first time met Green’s questioning gaze. “I trust
your discretion in this matter, Michael. If something should arise... If you
learn something...”
Green
saw the steel grey of authority return to the older man’s eyes. Jules had drawn
the curtains back down on his private world. Green found himself nodding, but
before he even knew what exactly he was agreeing to, Jules had slipped out of
the room.
* *
*
Constable Whelan had just come on
duty when the missing person’s call came in. Despite it being the holiday
season, he had expected the graveyard shift to be dead, because a blizzard was
howling outside. He’d barely made it into work with his four-wheel drive.
Temperatures were frigid, the winds were brutal, and the snow was slanting in
sideways sheets. Snowdrifts made the side roads impassable. No one, not even
the most drunk and determined reveller, would be out tonight. For the second
night in a row, school pageants and Christmas concerts had been cancelled,
neighbourhood potlucks rescheduled and holiday shopping put off for another
day.
Most
of his fellow shift workers would be busy on the streets, handling fender
benders and rounding up the homeless into shelters while he sat with his feet
up on the tiny corner desk on the second floor dedicated to missing persons,
reviewing, updating and cross-checking the active files against information
from across the country. The two aboriginal girls were still missing, and so
were the twins who were last seen going through airport security with their
Iranian father.
The
call surprised him. He logged it in automatically as he picked up the line.
12:32 a.m. It was a young man’s voice, brusque as if he were trying to conceal
his fear.
“I
want to report a woman missing.”
“Name,
sir?”
“Meredith
Kennedy.”
“I
mean your name.”
“Dr.
Brandon Longstreet.”
“Address?”
Longstreet
supplied an address on one of the classy avenues in Rockcliffe. Already the
case was unusual, Whelan thought, pulling up the MisPers form on his computer.
“The missing person is Meredith Kennedy, you say? Age and address?”
The
young man’s voice cracked slightly as he supplied her age, thirty-two, and an
address in McKellar Heights. Not on a par with Rockcliffe, but a respectable
middle-class neighbourhood nonetheless. The mystery deepened.
“And
how long has Meredith been missing?”
“I’m
not sure of the exact time. Possibly since Monday evening.”
Whelan
did a quick calculation. “That’s less than forty-eight hours, sir. What’s your
relationship to her?”
“But
it’s not like her. She’s not home, and her parents haven’t seen her since
Monday morning.”
“She
lives with her parents?”
“Temporarily,
yes, but we’re in touch every day. Often more than once.” Longstreet broke off,
and Whelan could imagine him trying to muster his argument. “She wouldn’t be
out tonight. Not in this.”
“Normally
it would be her parents filing the report, sir—”
“I
said I’d do it. They’re as worried as I am, I assure you.”
“And
what’s your relationship to her?”
“She’s
my fiancée. We’re getting married in less than three weeks.”
Whelan’s
fingers paused over the keys. This wouldn’t be the first bride to get cold
feet.
Longstreet
was ahead of him. “She’s very happy about it.”
“No
pre-wedding jitters?”
“None.”
“Anything
on her mind? Any disagreements with family—hers or yours?” Whelan’s daughter
had been married the previous summer, and both she and his wife had been in a
constant flap for a month beforehand. Caterers had quit over budget disputes,
the bridesmaids hated their dresses, the hall had jacked up its rates. “These
arrangements take their toll.”
There
was a slight pause. “The wedding isn’t the issue. It’s exactly what she and I
want—a small crowd, just close family and friends, held at my mother’s home,
buffet dinner reception afterwards. Non-denominational with a lay clergy, and
even her parents are okay with that even though they’re Catholic. Meredith
isn’t, at least not any more.”
It
was a lot of information for the question he had asked, which Whelan found odd.
He couldn’t resist a smile as he pictured all the trouble brewing beneath the
surface of this perfect wedding. The groom’s mother masterminding the whole
thing on her own turf, the Catholic parents pretending not to care. A Kennedy
marrying a Longstreet. It was enough to make his West Quebec Irish grandparents
roll over in their graves.
And
worst of all, a poor dumb groom oblivious to it all.
He
leaned back in his chair. “Have you tried her friends and family?”
A
long silence hung in the air. When Longstreet spoke again, his tone was deeper.
Angrier. “Look, I’m not a complete fool. I know this woman. She’s a strong,
capable, responsible adult. If she wanted to call off the wedding, she’d tell
me to my face. Of course I’ve tried her family and friends, and none of them
has heard from her since Monday at six. Her father and I have checked her
computer, and she hasn’t emailed or texted or posted on Facebook either. She
hasn’t been near her home, and it’s after midnight in a fucking blizzard! So
please take the damn report!”
Whelan
could hear the gravel in the young man’s voice. He knew all about fear and
loss; he’d recently watched his wife lose a brutal fight with breast cancer. He
relished the night shift so he wouldn’t have to spend hours alone in the dark.
Now he felt a twinge of shame for his own lack of compassion. He worked his way
through the rest of the questions and asked Longstreet to email a photo before
he signed off with a promise to be in touch.
As
the photo downloaded, Whelan watched the screen with a sinking heart. The girl
looked far younger than her thirty-two years, with red curls tumbling around
her face, big blue eyes and a classic Irish turned up nose that gave her an
impish charm. She was wearing an over-sized UNICEF t-shirt and grinning into
the camera with a big thumbs-up.
This
was far too pretty a girl to be wandering the streets alone at night, in any
weather.