Beautiful Lie the Dead (32 page)

He lay down on his bed to try to rest, leaving his computer on to receive the reply which never came. At five o'clock in the morning, he fell asleep.

TWENTY-THREE

G
reen had drifted into a fitful sleep just after two a.m. His last conscious thought was that, like it or not, he had to apprise the deputy chief of his suspicions in the morning. To hold back now, in the face of all the evidence implicating Adam Jules in this tangled web, would not only be career suicide but also detrimental to the case. The senior brass needed to know about this threat by one of their own. Briefly he considered bringing his concerns to his direct superior Barbara Devine, but rejected the notion. Surely even “By the Book” Poulin would see the folly in that.

By the time he arrived at the station Monday morning, however, he was having serious second thoughts about his whole cockamamie theory of the case. The coincidence was too impossible. Of all the women Brandon could have fallen in love with, what were the odds of it being his own half-sister? Neither one even lived in the city in which they were born, neither one had retained any ties to the mutual past that might have bound them. He felt a little sheepish that he'd sent Magloire out to comb through adoption registries and missing child reports from three decades ago in search of the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Before he blew Adam Jules's career to smithereens, he needed more confirmation from Magloire and Gibbs. He didn't expect any results from Magloire for hours, possibly days, but he was pleased to see Gibbs already at his desk on the phone, following up on his assignment.

Green spent a restless, impatient morning dealing with the emails and phone messages that had piled up over the weekend, and combing through all the reports on the case, looking for any small detail the detectives might have missed.

Gibbs was the first to report. Norah Kennedy had worked for the Montreal Police only briefly, in the general typing pool in 1980. Before that she'd worked for a temp agency and after that she'd moved to Ottawa. Green's first reaction was disappointment, for the dates didn't fit. But then he remembered that Amélie had not been a baby in the photos on Lise's wall. She might have been adopted as a toddler, in which case 1980 fit very well.

To his surprise, Magloire phoned back in the early afternoon. It had been a slow day in Major Crimes, and he had enlisted most of the staff to help him. At Saint-Camille Church in Montreal North, they'd found a parish record of the baptism in March 1979 of an Amélie Marie Gravelle, born November 4, 1978. Mother Lise Gravelle, father unknown. This birth had been subsequently registered at the St. Hyacinth town hall, but neither the town nor the province had any further record of a girl by that name. No school registration, no health card, no driver's license or social insurance number. Nor was there any record of adoption or death.

The Kennedy question was more straightforward. There was no record of a Meredith Kennedy being adopted anywhere in the Greater Montreal area, but even more telling, Magloire had found no trace of her birth either. No registration or birth announcement. Little Meredith Kennedy had surfaced briefly as a two-year-old when a Quebec health card was issued, before dropping from bureaucratic sight again. That's because she moved to Ontario, Green thought.

“It's possible she was born in another province,” Magloire said. “Even another country.”

Possible, Green admitted, although the Kennedys had never mentioned it. “What about missing or abducted child reports?”

“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?”