Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (251 page)

And what did a man in a black pick-up truck who claimed he’d hit a kid’s sled have to do with it?

It would be at least an hour before MacPhail and his crew would have news for him. Meanwhile, he’d never met the formidable Elena Longstreet. Now might be the time.

As a poor kid growing up across the Rideau River in Lowertown, Green had concluded long ago that the Village of Rockcliffe Park had been designed to keep the riff raff out. Or at least to get them so thoroughly lost in the higgle piggle of streets that they escaped at the first exit they came across. There was not a vinyl-sided cube to be seen. Massive gabled mansions of stone or brick confronted him at every turn, some behind wrought-iron gates and others at the end of circular drives. Expecting to get lost at least twice en route, he was surprised to find the house exactly where Doyle said it was. One block up and one over—an easy walk up from Beechwood along the road where the victim had been found.

Elena Longstreet’s house looked like a dwarf among Goliaths, a one-and-a-half storey brown brick home that had once probably been the gatehouse for a lumber baron’s estate. Someone had done a good job of gentrifying it, adding leaded pane windows, intricate black trim and a front door of polished honey oak. Curtains were drawn tightly over the windows to keep prying eyes from seeing inside. A black ornamental fence high enough to discourage intruders surrounded the property, and a two-car garage was partially hidden behind the house. The one jarring note in the tightly sealed façade was the garage door, which gaped open to reveal an empty interior.

Green rang the doorbell and listened to the elegant chimes echo through the house. Nothing. He peered through the small diamond-shaped lead window in the door. The inside vestibule door was wide open, offering him a glimpse of glass-fronted bookcases and terra cotta tiles in the main hall. He rang again. Still no answer, but this time he spotted something familiar hanging from the old-fashioned coat tree standing in the corner of the vestibule. It was a long woollen scarf in an exquisite and distinctive grey cashmere. As he rifled through the images in his memory, his heart began to pound. He had seen that scarf before.

Around the neck of Superintendent Adam Jules.

NINE

When Detective Peters had dropped her bombshell about Meredith’s visit to Montreal, Brandon Longstreet’s mind had nearly reeled out of control. He had maintained his composure only long enough to see the detective out of the house before he raced upstairs to access his computer.

In passing, he thought of phoning Reg and Norah but dismissed the idea. If hugs and kisses were any indication, Meredith loved her family to pieces, but she didn’t confide in them. She hadn’t since she was a little girl, because their comfortable, traditional outlook on the world did not welcome her questions or her doubts. Norah still baked pies for the St. Basil parish Christmas bake sale, for God’s sake. They didn’t disapprove of her wanderlust, exactly, just didn’t understand it.

Meredith felt the same estrangement from her cousin Wayne, especially since he married and moved to a four thousand square-foot McMansion in Kanata. Meredith felt an obligation—no, a passion—to save the poor and dispossessed, whereas Wayne played golf with his corporate clients and dropped four thousand dollars on season tickets to the Ottawa Senators. Despite all his business savvy, he didn’t have a tenth of Meredith’s vision.

Tears blurred Brandon’s eyes briefly as he thought of her. A pearl among stones, a woman with a love that encompassed not just him but all humanity and the planet itself. What had she been doing in Montreal? Why had she kept it secret, and what had she discovered there that so altered her course?

Once on the computer, he went straight to Meredith’s Facebook page and scoured her recent entries, as well as the comments of others, for details that she might have revealed of her trip. There was not a single mention. Meredith hadn’t posted much in recent weeks, and then mostly thank-yous for the good wishes posted by her friends. She had over nine hundred friends. Brandon did a quick search of their locations and found dozens from Montreal. He recognized a couple of distant cousins but most friends were probably Haitians she’d met last year. The limited profiles he could access gave him no further clues. But Facebook friends could have only the most tenuous connections, from a mutual interest in a political cause to shared work ties. None of her Montreal friends had posted on her page in recent weeks.

Brandon sat back in frustration. The trail was cold. What had she been up to, and of all her friends and family, who was the most likely to know?

Reluctantly, unwillingly, his mind kept coming back to his own mother and to the conversation he had overheard earlier that day. What did she know, and what was she determined to keep from him? Did it have something to do with Meredith?

He was no stranger to relationships, but he had never before sensed reluctance on his mother’s part. He’d assumed it was because the relationship had moved so fast, from their first meeting eight months ago to the engagement six months later and a quick wedding planned over Christmas. A wedding with none of the extravagant planning and traditional trappings that the mother of an only child might want.

He’d also wondered whether she blamed Meredith for his sudden passion for overseas work. Until last February, he had been pursuing family medicine at the hospital with no thoughts beyond finding a good practice once he’d qualified, but then he’d attended an information session at the Ottawa Hospital about relief work in Haiti. Speakers from the International Red Cross, CARE Canada, the Ministry of Immigration, and Doctors Without Borders had shared stories of tragedy, inspiration and need. There had been hundreds in the audience and at least a dozen speakers, but it was Meredith’s passion that caught his eye. She had been sent to Haiti by Immigration to help reunite Haitian Canadians with orphaned island relatives who had lost everything, including identity papers, beneath the rubble. She was supposed to stay a week but had stayed six.

“We live a life of comfort and security most of the world cannot even dream of,” she’d said. “I can’t sit at Starbucks sipping my low-fat, double shot latte and texting my friends while in Haiti children sit all day waiting for a single drink of water. If I have to carry that water myself, I will. I am going back.”

Normally he was partial to tall women with long, dark hair and sexy brown eyes. Meredith was a petite woman with an impish face and red hair. She wrinkled up her nose when she was confused, and her blue eyes crinkled shut when she laughed. But that evening, watching her on stage, passionate, angry, even tearful as she talked about her moment of revelation, he’d found her irresistible.

Intrigued, he’d looked her up on Facebook and found out to his astonishment that not only did they share an idealism and commitment to humanity, but their favourite music was Beethoven’s Ninth, and their favourite book was
Crime and
Punishment
. It felt like destiny. They corresponded sporadically through Facebook while she was back in Haiti and he was completing his residency, and the sense of destiny grew. She laughed at his jokes and finished thoughts he didn’t even know he had.

Three months later, when she bounced into the coffee shop for their first real meeting, late as always, he felt he’d known her forever.

They had talked without stopping for four hours, going through three cups of coffee and half a dozen scones. Eager to share their thoughts and explore their common ground, they had jumped from topic to topic, sampling their lives. Movies, university courses, politics, music, favourite foods, childhood fears and dreams. The thrill of discovery grew. By the end, when he took her small hand in his, he knew he’d found his kindred soul.

Somehow his mother had been peculiar about this relationship almost from the first time she’d met Meredith. Initially she’d seemed to admire Meredith’s idealism as much as he did, but something had caused her to withdraw. Was it the whirlwind wedding or their plan to work overseas?

Or did it have to do with Montreal?

On impulse, Brandon shut off his computer and hurried downstairs to snatch his jacket off the coat tree. Juggling gloves and scarf, he locked the house and followed the well-shovelled path to the garage. The door glided silently open to reveal a large concrete room lined with neat rows of shelving and hooks. Skis and hockey sticks were propped against the walls, and bicycles, kayaks and a canoe hung from the rafters. His Toyota Prius sat in its usual spot.

Normally he cycled or took the bus to the hospital. Even if parking and traffic congestion hadn’t been appalling, he would have made the greener choice out of principle. This time, however, he revved the car out of the garage without a qualm.

“Mom!” he whispered, leaning in close. “We need to talk.”

His mother barely reacted, telling in itself, he thought. He’d gone downtown only to learn that she was still in court, and had charged straight up the broad stone steps of the Ottawa courthouse and into the courtroom without a moment’s hesitation.

The lawyer for the Crown was on his feet, surrounded by a stack of banker’s boxes and thick sheaves of notes. He sifted through these as he droned on at the judge, who looked half asleep. Not so Elena Longstreet. She sat ramrod straight, her sleek silver hair glinting in the harsh court light and her expression one of a cat watching a songbird. When Brandon slipped into the chair behind her and whispered in her ear, she didn’t move. A faint furrow between her eyes was the only hint of consternation. Or disapproval.

“Brandon, we recess in fifteen minutes,” she whispered back, her lips barely moving.

“What do you know about Meredith’s disappearance?” He was aware of the judge waking up and blinking at them in confusion. Heads turned at the Crown counsel table, and even his mother stiffened.

“Fifteen minutes!”

“Is there a problem, Mrs. Longstreet?” the judge asked, almost hopefully.

His mother rose, radiating dignity and respect. Only Brandon would have known that she was furious. “Begging your lordship’s indulgence, if the court would grant me a five-minute recess—”

“Granted.” The judge was already on his feet, his black robe flapping behind him as he charged towards his chambers. The half-dozen observers, most of whom appeared to be lawyers, descended into chatter. Elena swung on Brandon.

“I realize the stress you’ve been under, but surely this can wait—”

Irrational anger swept through him at her patronizing tone, as if she knew so much more about life than he did. She was always protecting him when he least wanted or needed it.
“He
mustn’t know!”
As if he were a fragile shell.

“Mother, what are you hiding from me? About Meredith and Montreal!”

For the briefest instant, she recoiled as if slapped. No amount of self-discipline could prevent the shock that raced across her face. But she recovered well, restoring a perfect mask of puzzlement and curiosity to her fine features.

“Montreal? Who said anything about Montreal?”

“Did you know Meredith went to Montreal?”

Elena looked mystified. “Why would she go to Montreal?”

“That’s what I’m asking you. I overheard you talking to someone this morning, downstairs.”

She sat very still. Too still. Her eyes searched his. She’s trying to remember what she said, he realized with a jolt. To remember how much she gave away. He remained quiet, hoping she’d assume too much. However, she must have read the bluff in his eyes, for she shrugged.

“Nothing relevant, I assure you. I’m trying to take some of the burden of this off you, so I’ve been making some inquiries through my own contacts. So far they’ve proved fruitless.”

“But you found out something! You said ‘He mustn’t know!’

What—”

His mother started and reached beneath her court gown into her jacket pocket. She extracted her Blackberry, which hummed in her hand, and glanced at the screen. For an instant her features froze, and Brandon thought she even paled.

“I should take this,” she said, rising and turning away from him.

Fear surged through him again as he watched her face. Her lips tightened and she spoke just three words, “No...thank you,” before clicking the phone off. She turned back to the table and leaned on it as if she were drawing strength.

“This may mean nothing,” she began slowly.

He didn’t breathe.

“They’ve discovered a woman’s body.”

“Where?”

“Two blocks from our house. But they don’t yet know...”

He heard no more, because he was out the door.

Dusk was descending as Green headed back out to the far east end for the second time that day. Jules was not answering his calls, and this time the gloves were off. Jules was an officer sworn to uphold the law, and he damn well would. At the very least, the cashmere scarf cried out for explanation.

Mercifully the Queensway was dry, but the afternoon rush hour clogged all the lanes as far as he could see. Green flicked on the emergency flashers of his staff car and enjoyed the rush of adrenaline as he streaked along the bus lane past the endless stream of brake lights disappearing into the twilight.

He had stopped briefly at the excavation site to check for updates, but progress had been slow. MacPhail, apparently suspicious of the body’s appearance, was determined that not a molecule of trace evidence would be lost in the excavation process and that the body’s position would not be altered. The whole scene was shrouded in a white tent through which spotlights glowed eerily. No one else, including Green, was allowed inside in order to avoid inadvertent contamination, but Lyle Cunningham, the Identification officer, showed him some preliminary photos of the woman’s bare hands and stocking feet protruding upwards from deep inside the snowbank.

“What do you think, Lyle?” Green had asked as they hunched over the laptop screen in the Ident van. “Looks like she was buried that way by a snowplow.”

Cunningham pursed his lips in disapproval. Conjecture was not in his repertoire of tricks. He preferred to gather facts, present them coherently and let them speak for themselves. In the witness box, it was a laudable stance, but in the early stages of an investigation, it was a pain in the ass. Thorough crime scene analysis could take weeks, during which potential witnesses and criminals slipped through their fingers.