Beautiful Lie the Dead. Barbara Fradkin
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