Beautiful Lie the Dead (37 page)

“Why did he come to see you?”

She tugged at her blouse to rearrange her ample flesh. “To tell me about Lise's death. Not that it was a surprise. I thought she'd killed herself years ago. Like our mother that way. Life just kept knocking her down more times than she could get up.” Lilianne paused to wipe the sweat from her face, which had turned bright red in the heat of the room. “I don't suppose I could have a cold drink?”

“Coffee?”

She pulled a face. “Diet Coke would be better. Menopause is a curse.” Green dispatched Gibbs to get the drink then steered the woman back on track. “Where did this visit from Jules take place?”

“I have a place in Belleville. Not much more than a shoebox, really, but it's mine and it's more than my last husband got out of the divorce, so I can't complain. I got a job at Swiss Chalet where the tips are good if you're nice to people. I meet lots of people, so it suits me fine. I was never ambitious like Lise. All I wanted was a nice little home with a husband and children.” She paused for breath and chuckled wryly. “Well, I got four of the first but none of the second. That's why I had such hard feelings towards Lise and Adam.”

Green tried to hide his confusion. “Because she had a child and you didn't?”

“No. Because she wouldn't give Amélie to me when she had her breakdown. They decided I wasn't good enough to provide for her, and Adam persuaded Lise to give her up to strangers instead.” Lilianne's cheeks flushed red again and her nostrils flared. “I should have been the one to raise her, then we could have all been happy. I'd have let Lise be involved as much as she wanted. Instead it damn near killed her the day Adam marched her into that Catholic do-gooder's office and handed her flesh and blood over without so much as a proper goodbye. Father Fréchette wouldn't let Lise give her anything. Not a letter, not even her favourite blanket. Said she had to make a clean break from the past. I don't have much use for the church, as you can tell—”

Gibbs arrived with a tall glass of Coke. Lilianne downed half of it greedily then pressed the cold glass to her flaming cheeks. “Holee-e, I needed that.”

“What was the relationship between Adam Jules and your sister?”

She cast him a sidelong glance. “Not what you're thinking. I always thought if it was up to him, there would have been much more, but Lise was a broken soul. Harvey Longstreet did that to her. With his curls and those dimples, he could charm the pants off a nun. And he was so full of life, he lifted everyone along with him. She fell for him hard, and when he died—in her arms, actually, but that's all I'm going to say—she was a basket case. Amélie was all she had left of him and she became Lise's whole world. No room in it for shy, stuffy Adam Jules.”

“And yet he persuaded her to give Amélie up.”

“Well, Lise wasn't much of a mother. She tried, but some days she couldn't even get out of bed. Our mother was like that, and I can tell you it's not much fun for a kid. It's cold, lonely and confusing. You're always wondering what you did wrong, what you can do to make it better, how you can make her happy. In her good times, even Lise could see it wasn't good for Amélie. She knew she'd made Amélie too much her whole world and she was always scared she was going to lose her. She'd freak out every time Amélie got sick, she'd sit by her crib staring at her while she was sleeping, like she was afraid Amélie was going to stop breathing. Like Harvey, I guess.”

She paused as if caught up in the past, and Green let her collect her thoughts. When she resumed, her voice was softer. “Now I know it was the hardest thing Adam ever did. But back then I only thought about me, and about the kid I could never have, or Lise either. She haemorrhaged after the birth and had to have a hysterectomy. Still, he was probably right about me. I've not made such a success of things since then either.” A look of sorrow crept over her flushed face. “Ain't life a bitch.”

Regret hung heavy in the silence of the interview room. Even Gibbs had stopped taking notes and sadly looked across at her. Green was the first to pull his thoughts back to the present.

“Do you know where Adam Jules is now?”

She shrugged. “Going home, I think. Don't we all go home sooner or later, if we have any home left to go to?”

“St. Hyacinth?”

“He wanted you to know the whole story. He said if he didn't call back by Sunday night, I should come here myself. I'm sorry...” She ducked her head and played with the bangles on her wrist. “It took me a couple of days to decide if...”

“Decide what?”

She stopped twirling and looked up abruptly. “There's more.” She took a deep breath and reached into her purse to extract an envelope. “He gave me this. He wanted me to give it to Amélie. I mean Meredith. It's the letter Lise wrote to her that the priest wouldn't let her have. Damn near broke my heart.”

Green reached out, but she made no move to give it to him. “It's taken many years and miles to put this all behind me, and now... It's like opening it all up again, you know? ”

Green gently extracted it from her fingers. It was a short, simple note written in a beautiful French script.
‘Darling Amélie,
I'm doing this for you. You deserve more than I can give you, and
because I love you more than myself, I must put your need above
mine. But always know that you were conceived in love and will
be forever loved.'
Green felt his scalp prickle. The message spoke across the decades, across the divide of death.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” Lilianne said.

He nodded. But he also understood why the priest had not let Lise give it to Amélie. It was a burden beyond a young child's years.

“I think Lise would have been all right, you know? If Harvey hadn't died. She said he loved her.”

Green had his doubts but didn't voice them. What mattered was not what might have been, but the present. “Why could Jules not give her this himself? Why didn't he come himself?”

“I don't know.” She spoke slowly, frowning as if trying to bring a vague impression into focus. “Maybe it would bring back too much. I think he had a lot on his mind. He said he'd made a mess of things, and he couldn't fix it.”

Green felt a twinge of alarm. Belleville was a town on the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Toronto. It was a good four-hour drive, yet Jules had visited Lilianne in Belleville the same day after his visit to Cyril in Montreal. He'd been so upset after seeing Cyril that he'd nearly run Green off the road. What had sent him on such a frantic drive?

“Did he say what the mess was? Or why he couldn't fix it?”

“Because it was too late. Lise was dead.” She paused and drained her Coke. She looked calmer now, but troubled. “I tried to get more details, but he didn't say much. Somehow he saw her death as his fault. He'd made one too many mistakes, and because of that, someone had panicked.”

“And killed Lise.”

“Yes. And killed Lise.”

“Who?”

“He didn't say. Just that he shouldn't have tried to play God, and now a whole lot of innocent lives were ruined.” Lilianne leaned forward, her face still moist but drained of colour. The brash, blowsy façade had gone. “I had a bad feeling when he said goodbye that night, Inspector Green. It felt...so final.”

* * *

Levesque squealed the tires as she accelerated out of the police parking garage. Behind them Gibbs was struggling to keep pace. Once she'd wrestled the car onto Elgin Street, she glanced over at Green, who was already dialling Magloire.

“Do you really believe Meredith is in danger? From Brandon? From her own parents?”

Green listened to the ringing. “Adam Jules is a very astute man. If he said someone was panicking, he must know something.” Relief surged through him when Magloire picked up. “Jean Pierre, I want you to contact your SQ friend out at Ste. Hyacinth again. Not about Lise Gravelle, but about Adam Jules. He's still missing but he may have gone home. I'm concerned for his safety.”

“Why?”

“Lise Gravelle's sister has shown up.” He filled Magloire in as fast as he could. Precious seconds were ticking by. “I believe Jules may have guessed the killer but more importantly, the killer may know that. We need to find him first.” He left Magloire to draw his own conclusions, likely erroneous. Shielding Jules's reputation was only one reason. The SQ would search far more vigorously for a fellow officer under threat than they would for one about to kill himself.

Moreover, Green had a nagging fear that Jules was trying to play God one last time, by drawing the killer after him and away from the innocent players in the drama. A redemption of sorts.

Magloire needed no further urging. He recorded the sketchy details Green knew of Jules's rental car and signed off abruptly, a man on a mission. Levesque was in the fast lane now, streaking across the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge to Quebec. The car was rock steady beneath her capable hands. Glancing at his watch, Green saw that he'd already missed his meeting with Poulin. He thumbed through his contacts and dialled the deputy chief 's cell phone. This time he was prepared to go to battle for Adam Jules's life.

The man picked up with his characteristic “Poulin!”

“Sorry about our meeting, but I have new information,” Green said before Poulin could cut him off. “I believe Adam Jules is in danger. He's been conducting his own investigation—”

“Green, what the man does on his own time is his prerogative.”

“But he may have spooked the killer. I'm not sure he's aware he's in danger.” I'm also not sure he cares, Green thought but kept the doubt to himself.

“Have you solved the case, Green?”

“I'm coordinating things with the SQ. We're on our way—”

“What the hell is going on!”

For the first time, Poulin's voice roared through the line, full of urgency and indignation. Is that what it takes to get your attention? Green thought. Not concern for a missing officer, not the possibility of threats to his life, but the spectre of an inter-jurisdictional turf war? And the failure to follow the proper chain of command?

Taking a deep breath, he filled Poulin in with all the patience and calm he could muster. To his credit, the man stopped interrupting and actually heard him out.

“All right, what do you need me to do at this end?” “We have the cooperation of the Papineau district in the area and we're planning a joint response—”

“Tactical?”

“No, sir. The SQ will handle the operation.” Anticipating another protest, he said, “But I'd appreciate your involvement to coordinate operations at the higher level. Time may be critical, that's why we're moving ahead.”

“Done. What else?”

“And we have to examine Adam's telephone records to see who he's been talking to and where he's made any financial transactions.”

“You think he's involved in this current incident?”

Green considered the idea. He didn't see how Jules could know about the cottage unless Brandon or the Kennedys told him. But Jules had been full of surprises. “All the more reason to know what he's been up to,” he replied.

There was a longer pause. Levesque was now playing slalom with the transport trucks on the four-lane highway that ran east along the Ottawa River. Green glanced back. In the cruiser behind them, he could see that Gibbs had a terrified look on his face.

“Done,” Poulin said finally. “But I'm getting our Tac unit commander on board at this end, Green. Stay in touch.”

Green hung up and stared grimly ahead. The unknown hung over him like a cloud. Was Poulin overreacting and would he authorize a joint tactical raid on a flimsy little cottage in the back woods? Where for all Green knew, a fragile, devastated family was just trying to put the pieces back together.

But that was the problem. He didn't know.

Levesque shot him a quick, questioning glance. “There may be no cell phone reception out there, but we should at least try phoning Longstreet. Pretend it's a routine follow-up. It might help us evaluate his state of mind.”

Green toyed briefly with the idea before rejecting it. He had no idea why Brandon had set out on his own to find Meredith, if indeed he had, nor why he'd chosen to circumvent the police. The young man was a loose cannon, overwhelmed with horror and despair.

“As long as we don't actually know the situation, it's too risky. Without being right there to contain their reaction, we could spook someone or scare them away.”

Or worse, he added privately.

TWENTY-EIGHT

S
now began to fall as they turned left off the four-lane Highway 50 onto the twisting country road that ran north into the rolling foothills of the Laurentians. The road ran like a bobsled run between two ridges of snow left by the plow, and the car bucked on the cracked, pothole-riddled surface. The wind picked up, and Green watched the blowing snow with alarm.

Not only would it threaten driving, but it would also obliterate any tire tracks or footprints left around the cabin.

When they reached the village of Mayo, which proved to be little more than a crossroads, a country store and a church, there was no sign of the Sûreté du Québec cruiser which was to meet them. Levesque phoned her cousin, who apologized and said the unit was delayed because procedure dictated that it be sent from Papineauville detachment headquarters further east, at least an hour away. They were on their way, but still fifteen kilometres out.

Green grumbled in disgust. The SQ's jurisdictional red tape was as strangling as any on the Ontario side. “I don't want to wait. Tell them we're going ahead and to meet us out at the cabin as fast as they can.”

Levesque passed on the message, but he could hear the doubt in her tone. Afterwards, she lifted her foot off the brake and eased the car back onto the road. They drove in silence through rocky, wooded terrain dotted sporadically with farms, then along a small lake bordered by cottages. Many were closed for the winter, but huge Christmas displays of Santa and mangers adorned the front lawns of the others.