Grave Situation (28 page)

“Didn’t I tell you to clean out
the parlor when I went to town?” The smell of whiskey wafted on his
breath. “Morceau de merde.”

Stupefied, he watched his father’s
face, reddened by drink and anger. The man had said no such thing
before leaving for town.

The boy choked in a small voice,
“I’m sorry, Dad.”

His breathing labored, the man gave
his son a heavy-lidded stare.

At the edge of the cornfield the
spaniel watched the pair with its head lowered and tail tucked
between its hind legs. The man shifted his gaze to the dog, then
back to the boy.

“Oh, you’re going to be sorry all
right,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

He slung the boy against his hip
and carried him back to the house in the crook of his arm. Once
inside, he hurled his son across the kitchen floor as if he were
weightless. With a short cry the boy struck a chair, knocking it
over.

For a long moment, the man stood
near the back door. His eyes bored into his son with intensity akin
to fury. The boy sat in a huddle, too afraid to move or speak. In
the silence, disembodied voices drifted from the living room. His
mother, he knew, was watching her soaps. She wouldn’t come to his
rescue.

The boy had learned why over time.
No one messed with his father, especially when he’d been drinking.
One day some drunk at Gary’s Tavern had and the boy’s father sent
him to the hospital. Broken nose. Two missing teeth. Fractured
cheekbone.

The man walked to the refrigerator
now, jerked open the door, and brought out a beer. He twisted off
the cap and tossed it into the sink. Then he tipped the bottle to
his lips, guzzling down the beer until it was gone. He wiped his
lips, set the empty bottle on the counter, and then leered at his
son again. His nostrils flared and his jaw muscles jumped
repeatedly.

As the boy watched him, his throat
moved in convulsive swallows.

“I’m gonna teach you to never
disobey me again,” the man said at last.

The boy stared at him, not
understanding.

“But I didn’t, Dad.”

“Shut up,” his father
barked.

A vacant look came across the man’s
face. He looked at the doorway leading into the living room, then
back to the boy.

“I know exactly what I’m going to
do.”

The boy froze at something in his
father’s voice—a sinister calmness he hadn’t heard before. Still
too afraid to move, he watched the man disappear into the living
room.

A moment later, he heard his mother
say, “Now where are you going with that?”

“You just never mind,” his father
shot back.

When the man came back into the
kitchen carrying his 30.06 Remington, the boy felt his heart lurch.
Without a word, the man reached down and tugged his shaken son off
the floor. Together, they went outside to the backyard.

Herb turned away from the window
and shut his eyes.

Why,
he wondered,
is this all
coming back to me now?

He wanted another drink, but needed
to be able to drive soon. He opened his eyes and looked at the
clock. 8:43.

In two minutes the phone rang. With
a great reluctance, Herb picked it up.

“Do you have them?” a voice
asked.

Herb’s gaze moved to the cooler on
the table. “Yeah.”

“Good. Meet me at the same spot in
half an hour.”

31

Halifax, May 17

11:36 a.m.

The patchy breeze and flawless sky
made it a perfect day to be out on the water. Nick and Heather
Baldwin had spent over two hours sailing their boat off the shores
of McNabs Island when they heard something thump along the hull. At
first they thought they had struck a piece of driftwood, until
Heather went to the starboard side and gasped at what she saw in
the murky water. There was a dead body just visible below the
surface, floating face down with the limbs hanging beneath. It was
a woman, nude and bloated.

Now, thirty minutes after the
discovery, the Underwater Recovery Team anchored their Boston
Whaler near the body. As the boat rocked gently in the waves,
Monika Chase braced herself on the gunwale and peered over the
side. She was a thirty-four year old police diver who was fit and
lean with blonde-haired good looks.

“I wonder how long she’s been out
here?” she asked.

Her dive partner, Robert Worsley,
joined her. He was forty-two, compact with a cordial face, graying
hair and a moustache. He had over twenty years of experience as a
police diver.

“Definitely for a while,” he said.
“I doubt this is where she entered the water?”

Chase nodded. “I agree. Things
don’t remain stationary out here. Currents are too
strong.”

She assessed the surface conditions
of the water—two to three foot waves with little chop. Should be a
routine recovery. As Worsley began taking pictures, Chase recorded
the position and location of the body in a notebook.

When she finished, she paused a
moment to watch an osprey hovering above the waves halfway between
them and the lighthouse on a tiny islet connected to McNabs Island.
The bird suddenly plunged into the water feet first and remained
there for several seconds before lifting into the air again with a
fish gripped within its talons. It flew off toward the
island.

Nice catch.

Chase got a mesh body bag ready to
take with her, unzipping it, folding it in half and then rolling it
up tight so most of the air could escape. Worsley retrieved his
underwater camera with attached strobe. Then he and Chase went to
the port side where they put on their facemasks and fins. Before
entering the water, the backup diver made a final check of their
equipment and then popped off the dive door for them.

When he gave the hand signal for
ok, Worsley stepped out into the water first, immediately followed
by Chase. In unison they disappeared below.

The water was cold and turbid. The
sun’s rays reaching beneath the surface highlighted the curtain of
sediment.

As Chase swam closer to the body,
she observed the pair of shoes on the feet, the stockings gathered
around the ankles, the dark miniskirt draped around the
waist.

Trixy Ambré?

Chase couldn’t be sure. She
adjusted her buoyancy so she could suspend vertically and then she
circled the body, taking in the scavenger activity over different
areas. Around her came flashes of Worsley’s camera.

She dipped under the corpse; the
face was bloated and discolored. As her gaze moved to the abrasions
around the eye sockets, she became very still. A steady plume of
bubbles shot out from the side of her regulator.

Her eyes are missing.

She motioned Worsley over to
document the injuries with his camera. After he finished, Chase
unfolded the mesh bag and carefully began to cover the body with
it. Careful not to touch the hands, she tucked the limbs inside,
noting the absence of rigor as she did.

She zipped up the bag around the
body, gripped one of the carrying straps, and with Worsley’s help,
ascended to the top. As they broke the surface of the water, they
made themselves buoyant. They swam toward the boat and the backup
diver onboard lowered a Stokes basket over the side to them. Chase
and Worsley carefully strapped the body bag inside it and then
helped the diver haul the basket in slowly, so the water could
drain through the mesh.

Onboard again, Chase retrieved her
cell phone and made two calls.

The first was to Doctor Coulter,
the second to Allan Stanton.

32

Halifax, May 17

2:15 p.m.

The autopsy viewing room was cool
and quiet. Though its purpose was to minimize the shock and smells,
in Allan’s experience, it did little good in moments like
this.

He stood beside Philip Ambré in
front of a curtained window, waiting for Doctor Coulter to reveal
the body of the woman pulled from the Halifax Harbor. Allan was
quite certain that the body belonged to Trixy Ambré. He wished that
it could be someone else. In two days, he knew, Cathy would be laid
to rest. Now here was her father, waiting to learn the fate of his
only other daughter.

In the five days since Cathy’s
death, Philip’s appearance had changed dramatically. He looked
haggard, diminished and weary. His eyes held a haunted quality and
were bruised by dark crescents. Allan couldn’t imagine how hard
this had to be for him.

“I’m sorry to have to put you
through this again,” he said.

Philip lowered his head and then
looked up at him with a stoic resolve that Allan knew must be
feigned.

“I know you are,” Philip answered
softly.

A knock came at the door and Doctor
Coulter poked his head in. “Are we ready, Lieutenant?”

Allan gave a slight nod. “All
set.”

As the door closed, Philip inhaled
a deep breath and turned to the window with a stiff, grim
composure.

Coulter drew the curtain aside. A
body lay on a metal gurney just on the other side of the glass,
covered by a white sheet. Coulter walked over to it and then pulled
the sheet down to the woman’s upper chest. With merciless clarity,
the overhead lights captured the puffy face and the waxen skin that
was blotched with dark, irregular patches. Allan noted that Coulter
had closed the eyelids to conceal the missing eyes.

For several minutes, Philip didn’t
move, only stared at the woman with his mouth agape.

I hate
this
, Allan thought.

“How…” Philip tried to speak, but
his parched voice was lost in a hard swallow. “How does a father
not know his own daughter?”

“You can’t ID her?”

Philip shook his head. “It’s her
face. What’s wrong with it? It looks bloated. And Cynthia never had
those huge blemishes before.”

“It’s from the time she spent in
the water,” Allan explained.

Quiet, Philip’s mouth formed a
small “o”.

“The hair is similar, Lieutenant,”
he said after a time. “How many other women do you have missing in
the city?”

Only one this
recent,
Allan wanted to
say.

“She
was
found wearing
clothes that Cathy had described in the missing persons report,” he
told Philip. “But there are other ways of confirming identity.
Dental records. Blood tests.”

Arms folded, Philip turned away,
staring at the floor. Moments passed before he looked at Allan
again.

In a tone laced with melancholy, he
said, “Cynthia had a diamond-shaped birthmark on the nape of her
neck. You should be able to see it under her hairline. If it’s
her.”

Allan left to convey the
information to Doctor Coulter. When Allan returned to the viewing
room, he stood at the window with Philip and watched Lawrence
Sodero turn over the body. Coulter adjusted his glasses and
examined the back of the neck. He glanced at the two men in the
window and then said something to Sodero. Allan sensed Coulter was
hesitating for some reason. At last, he removed his glasses and
gave Allan and Philip a solemn nod.

For what seemed a long time, Philip
visibly strived to keep from breaking. Then he lowered his head and
emitted a shaky breath. Watching him, Allan could feel the depth of
his loss.

“I’m so sorry, Mister
Ambré.”

Philip’s eyes were moist. “Cynthia
and I haven’t spoken to one another in three years,” he murmured.
“But I still loved her.”

Allan looked into his ravaged face.
“I know you did.”

Philip placed a
hand on Allan’s arm and squeezed. “Please find the one responsible
for this. Bring the
fucker
to justice.”

It was a simple plea from an
anguished father, Allan realized, yet it filled him with a mix of
dread and duty.

“I’ll do the best I can,” he
said.

Tears ran down Philip’s face now.
“I know you will.” He walked toward the door and then stopped,
looking back over his shoulder. “Carol and I would love to see you
at Cathy’s service on Wednesday. Can you make it?”

“I already set time aside for
it.”

Philip nodded. “Thank you,
Lieutenant.”

“If I may,” Allan interrupted,
“could I ask you one question?”

“Anything.”

“Was Cynthia able to
swim?”

Philip wiped his eyes and sniffled.
“No.”

“Thank you.”

Without saying more, Philip
left.

Heartsick, Allan watched the door
close behind him. He knew that it would be a tough road ahead for
Philip—both daughters gone in the span of a week. How could any
father bear the guilt of not having protected either of
them?