Beautiful Lie the Dead Read online

  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.

  TWO

  The sound of doors slamming and voices in the street penetrated Brandon’s sleep. He bolted awake, disoriented and full of hope. Stumbling to the window, he peered down to see a CTV media van parked in the street and two crew members lugging a shoulder camera through the snow to the front door.

  The blizzard had spent itself, leaving sculpted swirls of snow across the front yard. Winter dawn washed the snow in a rosy glitter. For once, he was unmoved. Awash in fatigue and despair, he peered at his bedside clock.

  Seven fucking o’clock, and the vultures were already out.

  He’d managed two hours’ sleep after spending most of the night on the internet and on the phone, pacing the kitchen and speaking in low, urgent tones to avoid waking his mother. They had barely talked when he’d returned from his evening shift, but he’d felt her gaze upon him. There was doubt in it, but also pity. He kept his distance, not trusting himself to be civil should she reach out. Not trusting himself not to blurt out: “She didn’t leave me! You never did like her, and you know it. You made her feel common, unworthy, tolerated only because I insisted.”

  Part of him knew that was immature and unfair, a deflection of blame to avoid looking at his own failings. At his own small niggle of doubt, which didn’t bear thinking about.

  His mother was up now, and he heard her hurrying towards the front door to intercept the crew before they rang the bell. Reluctantly he headed down the hall. On two hours sleep, he didn’t feel up to facing the media, so he hung back in the stairwell as his mother opened the front door. A microphone was thrust in her face. If anyone understood the media, it was his mother. She understood the drama—had used it often enough herself—but how would she choose to play this scene? On Meredith’s side, or against her?

  With the camera rolling, the media were the essence of respect. The young female reporter whom Brandon recognized from the local news introduced herself as Natasha, confirmed his mother’s identity and asked if they could do an interview inside. Their breath billowed white around them, and his mother hugged her velvet robe tightly around her.

  “Certainly,” she said but without moving. “As long as I will do. My son has only just gone to bed after working and staying up all night tracking down leads—”

  “That’s fine,” Natasha interrupted hastily.

  His mother led them inside and left them to set up while she disappeared. In her absence, the cameraman positioned his tripod in the bay window and trained his lens on the loveseat opposite. Brandon knew his mother would be pleased with the choice. It captured the gentility of the room—carved mahogany frame, rose floral brocade, delicate antique lace pillows—and it went well with her royal blue dressing gown.

  When she re-entered the room carrying a tea tray, Brandon felt a flash of frustration. Tea before Meredith—how like Elena Longstreet. To her credit, Natasha ignored the tea and ploughed straight into the questions with no chit-chat or preamble.

  “I understand your son and Meredith Kennedy are engaged.

  When is the wedding?”

  “New Year’s Eve. A choice they may later consider unwise, but at the time it seemed romantic.”

  “When was the last time you or your son had contact with Meredith?”

  “I haven’t seen her in nearly a month, although she’s due to come to my annual eggnog party on Christmas Eve. She’s been extraordinarily busy—”

  “But your son?”

  “He had dinner with her Sunday evening, I believe.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “As far as I know, she was fine. She’s a bride, so she has a lot on her mind. She may have been a little anxious recently, but certainly nothing to worry about.”

  “Any particular things she was anxious about?”

  “Oh, the usual. One of her bridesmaids has withdrawn, and her family wants some young cousin to be a ring bearer, but he’s only two and naturally there are concerns—”

  “Any disagreements with your son?”

  Brandon saw
his mother lift her chin to face the interviewer squarely. He knew the fluff she’d supplied so far would not survive the cutting room, but this question was the heart of the interview. The clip that would be replayed throughout the day and possibly across the country. The clip that would be dissected by the police. He found himself holding his breath.

  “They are blissfully happy. They have both waited a long time to find each other, and I truly believe that their love is far more important to them than any disputes over menu or wedding procession. They always find a middle ground.”

  “What do you think has happened to her?”

  Elena hesitated, and Brandon wondered how she would answer. This too might play across the nation. To his relief, she settled on a message of hope. “I hope she simply wanted a day or two of solitude to regroup. We invest so much emotion in our wedding, as a highlight of our lives and expression of our hope for a perfect future. Yet the reality of planning it—balancing out the guest list, finding the right shoes for the dress, choosing between pecan-crusted salmon and Cornish game hen—robs the event of its romantic sheen. Brides in particular struggle with that. She did seem distracted of late, as if her mind were elsewhere.”

  “Distracted by what?”

  “Possibly the move. They were going to Ethiopia after the honeymoon for a two-year posting with Doctors Without Borders. Meredith worked in Haiti for a brief stint, but neither of them have ever been to Africa. Perhaps she was apprehensive. Natural enough.”

  “Are she and her family close?”

  Brandon moved down the stairs. So far, his mother had said all the right things, but he knew she was playing to the jury. He wasn’t sure he trusted her to keep her views of Meredith’s family quite so benign.

  She must have heard his footsteps, for she raised her voice.

  Warning him, he wondered? “Very. She comes from a lovely family.” She rose to her feet. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I hear—”

  “There is no trouble,” Brandon said, striding into the room. He knew he was a sight, still dressed in yesterday’s rumpled hospital garb and sporting a day’s growth. His blue eyes were probably bloodshot and his thick hair plastered in unruly spikes. When the camera swung to him, he faced it square on. A spectacle for sure, but also raw truth.

  “You need to get that message across,” he said. “Meredith was not an overwrought bride who got cold feet. She was excited about the wedding and looking forward to working overseas. She has not run off. Something has happened to her. An accident, a slip on the ice that knocked her out. She could be out there somewhere. Buried. In this weather, hypothermia could set in in minutes...” He broke off, quivering.

  Elena moved to his side, deftly shielding him from the camera.

  “The police are taking this very seriously,” she said. “I believe they have patrol cars on the look-out and are going to search her home for clues.” She glanced outside and allowed herself a small shiver. “We ask for everyone’s help. Check your driveways and the walks in front of your houses. If anyone saw her or has a clue where she might have gone, please call the police. The more eyes we have looking, the sooner we’ll find her.”

  * * *

  Once again, Green glanced at his phone. Almost eleven a.m. and Sergeant Li from Missing Persons still had not returned his call. He didn’t want to phone again, concerned that his impatience might arouse suspicions. A routine inquiry, that’s all it was supposed to be.

  Green loved being interrupted by a real life enigma. By Wednesday, the desk in his little office was awash in memos, updates, reports, and his computer inbox was stuffed with more of the same. As the city dug out from its first major snowstorm of the season, the second floor of Elgin Street Headquarters was eerily calm. Criminals too had been deterred by the weather. It was tricky robbing a bank when the getaway car might get stuck in a snowbank, and sexual assault was much more of a challenge in bone-chilling cold and knee-deep drifts. Only the serious and the desperate were out on the street looking for trouble on days like this.

  In the Major Crimes Unit, detectives were using the lull to catch up on paperwork or follow up on existing cases. They hunched over computers or talked on the phone, jotting notes. Green could see Detectives Bob Gibbs and Sue Peters at their adjacent desks, unconsciously leaning towards each other as they worked.

  On his desk in front of him, Green had assembled the stack of performance appraisals prepared by his NCOs, and he was trying to make decisions he hated. Who to transfer out, who to keep. Organizational policy required police officers to move at least every five years. He knew all the bureaucratic reasons. In theory, it was to ensure a well-rounded, experienced police service, to allow for fresh perspectives and enthusiasm, and to avoid burn-out in the high stress jobs. In practice, it usually meant that just as an officer became really good at the job and developed a network on the street, he or she was moved out, leaving the supervisors with a continual pool of inexperienced, uncertain staff.

  Bob Gibbs was one of the officers he’d been trying to shelter for months. The young detective had always been the most valuable geek in the unit, roaming the vast world of cyberspace with ease to track down bad guys and ferret out information. Now, however, he was finally beginning to gain some confidence and skill as an interviewer. He was a far better detective than he would ever be a front line officer, a paradox Green could relate to. If he himself hadn’t had Jules to rescue him from the uniform division, he likely would have been turfed out of the force within a year. Or quit in a fit of righteous pique.

  Yet Superintendent Devine, herself the master of job hopping her way up the ladder without staying long enough in any job to get really good at it, had issued Green an ultimatum after yesterday’s meeting. She had her quota of underlings to move as well and had hinted that Green’s own name could be on the list if he didn’t play the game. He knew that he was well past due for a transfer and stayed at the helm of Major Case Investigations only because she’d decided no newbie inspector would make her look as good. It was a dubious vote of confidence that could be rescinded on a whim. Barbara Devine was famous for whims.

  Devine argued that more experience in other areas, particularly in Patrol, was just what Gibbs needed to put the necessary swagger in his step and teach him to make decisions in the span of two seconds. “Not just high-pressure decisions, Mike, any decisions,” she’d said. Green wasn’t so sure. It might make him, but it might also break him.

  Mercifully, the phone rang before he had to decide. He pounced on the distraction, expecting the MisPers sergeant, only to hear a slight pause followed by a breathy, little-girl voice from long ago.

  “I want her home for Christmas, Mike.”

  He felt his jaw clench. How his first wife still had the power to do that was a mystery. She’d walked out on him eighteen years ago, putting a bitter, moribund marriage out of its misery. His second wife, Sharon, had brought him infinitely more joy in the years since then, along with a son who had the dark, curly hair and laughing brown eyes of his mother, but whose stubbornness and intensity was all Green.

  Green glanced at his watch. Barely eleven o’clock in the morning, eight o’clock in Vancouver. The crack of dawn for Ashley. She must have been stewing all night.

  “Good morning to you too, Ashley.”

  “It’s time this nonsense ended. I want to see her. It’s the least you can do, Mike. You don’t even celebrate Christmas!”

  “She’s eighteen. I’m not stopping her. She makes her own decisions.”

  “She’s done that since she was two years old,” Ashley retorted. “But you could encourage her. Tell her it’s time to mend fences. You have Tony too, but Hannah’s all I’ve got.”

  Green heard the catch of well-rehearsed tears in her voice. He could have argued the point. Children were not interchangeable or replaceable, and Ashley had had Hannah all to herself for the first fifteen years of her life. But he knew she was right. For her own sake, Hannah needed to reconnect with her mother. She was no longer t
he defiant, resentful teenager who had landed on his doorstep nearly three years earlier. She was on track to graduate from high school with full honours this spring, an edgy, thoughtful young woman who could run rings around her empty-headed mother.

  In the silence, as Green struggled with his own reluctance, Ashley pressed her case. “I’m not going to force her, Mike. Fred and I have done a lot of talking, and I know that doesn’t work. But she’ll listen to you. She’s just like you. Tell her I’ll promise not to fight with her.”

  A promise that will last precisely half an hour, Green thought.

  In a tight spot, fighting was still Hannah’s preferred mode of expression. It was all she’d known when she’d arrived in Green’s life. Fortunately, however, conflict resolution between mother and daughter was not his responsibility. He only had to get Hannah on the plane, and the rest was up to Ashley and Fred. Disguising a tightness in his chest, he agreed to try.

  No sooner had he hung up than there was a soft knock at his door, and the Missing Persons sergeant poked his head in.

  A twenty-four year veteran of Patrol, Li had been on modified duties for nearly a year while he awaited hip surgery. Most of the time, Missing Persons was a clerical job of filling in forms, making internet and phone inquiries, and liaising with other units and agencies. Every few months a genuine mystery came along that the missing persons team could sink its investigative teeth into. Li looked as if he was long overdue.

  Green beckoned him in and watched as Li eased himself into the plastic guest chair wedged in the narrow space between the desk and the door. He had packed an extra fifty pounds onto his mid-size frame since being parked behind a desk, and his bad hip obviously complained at each new move.

  “I’m guessing this is about the missing girl,” Li said before Green could even form his question.

  Green masked his surprise. “What’s the story?”

  “So far, it’s not clear. Her name’s Meredith Kennedy, thirty-two years old, good family, no known criminal ties. Fiancé called it in last night.”