Beautiful Lie the Dead. Barbara Fradkin

in his little office was awash in memos, updates, reports, and his computer inbox was stuffed with more of the same. As the city dug out from its first major snowstorm of the season, the second floor of Elgin Street Headquarters was eerily calm. Criminals too had been deterred by the weather. It was tricky robbing a bank when the getaway car might get stuck in a snowbank, and sexual assault was much more of a challenge in bone-chilling cold and knee-deep drifts. Only the serious and the desperate were out on the street looking for trouble on days like this.

      In the Major Crimes Unit, detectives were using the lull to catch up on paperwork or follow up on existing cases. They hunched over computers or talked on the phone, jotting notes. Green could see Detectives Bob Gibbs and Sue Peters at their adjacent desks, unconsciously leaning towards each other as they worked.

      On his desk in front of him, Green had assembled the stack of performance appraisals prepared by his NCOs, and he was trying to make decisions he hated. Who to transfer out, who to keep. Organizational policy required police officers to move at least every five years. He knew all the bureaucratic reasons. In theory, it was to ensure a well-rounded, experienced police service, to allow for fresh perspectives and enthusiasm, and to avoid burn-out in the high stress jobs. In practice, it usually meant that just as an officer became really good at the job and developed a network on the street, he or she was moved out, leaving the supervisors with a continual pool of inexperienced, uncertain staff.

      Bob Gibbs was one of the officers he’d been trying to shelter for months. The young detective had always been the most valuable geek in the unit, roaming the vast world of cyberspace with ease to track down bad guys and ferret out information. Now, however, he was finally beginning to gain some confidence and skill as an interviewer. He was a far better detective than he would ever be a front line officer, a paradox Green could relate to. If he himself hadn’t had Jules to rescue him from the uniform division, he likely would have been turfed out of the force within a year. Or quit in a fit of righteous pique.

      Yet Superintendent Devine, herself the master of job hopping her way up the ladder without staying long enough in any job to get really good at it, had issued Green an ultimatum after yesterday’s meeting. She had her quota of underlings to move as well and had hinted that Green’s own name could be on the list if he didn’t play the game. He knew that he was well past due for a transfer and stayed at the helm of Major Case Investigations only because she’d decided no newbie inspector would make her look as good. It was a dubious vote of confidence that could be rescinded on a whim. Barbara Devine was famous for whims.

      Devine argued that more experience in other areas, particularly in Patrol, was just what Gibbs needed to put the necessary swagger in his step and teach him to make decisions in the span of two seconds. “Not just high-pressure decisions, Mike, any decisions,” she’d said. Green wasn’t so sure. It might make him, but it might also break him.

      Mercifully, the phone rang before he had to decide. He pounced on the distraction, expecting the MisPers sergeant, only to hear a slight pause followed by a breathy, little-girl voice from long ago.

      “I want her home for Christmas, Mike.”

      He felt his jaw clench. How his first wife still had the power to do that was a mystery. She’d walked out on him eighteen years ago, putting a bitter, moribund marriage out of its misery. His second wife, Sharon, had brought him infinitely more joy in the years since then, along with a son who had the dark, curly hair and laughing brown eyes of his mother, but whose stubbornness and intensity was all Green.

      Green glanced at his watch. Barely eleven o’clock in the morning, eight o’clock in Vancouver. The crack of dawn for Ashley. She must have been stewing all night.

      “Good morning to you too, Ashley.”

      “It’s time this nonsense ended. I want to see her. It’s the least you can do, Mike. You don’t even celebrate Christmas!”

      “She’s eighteen. I’m not stopping her. She makes her own decisions.”

      “She’s done that since she was two years old,” Ashley retorted. “But you could encourage her. Tell her it’s time to mend fences. You have Tony too, but Hannah’s all I’ve got.”

      Green heard the catch of well-rehearsed tears in her voice. He could have argued the point. Children were not interchangeable or replaceable, and Ashley had had Hannah all to herself for the first fifteen years of her life. But he knew she was right. For her own sake, Hannah needed to reconnect with her mother. She was no longer the defiant, resentful teenager who had landed on his doorstep nearly three years earlier. She was on track to graduate from high school with full honours this spring, an edgy, thoughtful young woman who could run rings around her empty-headed mother.

      In the silence, as Green struggled with his own reluctance, Ashley pressed her case. “I’m not going to force her, Mike. Fred and I have done a lot of talking, and I know that doesn’t work. But she’ll listen to you. She’s just like you. Tell her I’ll promise not to fight with her.”

      A promise that will last precisely half an hour, Green thought.

      In a tight spot, fighting was still Hannah’s preferred mode of expression. It was all she’d known when she’d arrived in Green’s life. Fortunately, however, conflict resolution between mother and daughter was not his responsibility. He only had to get Hannah on the plane, and the rest was up to Ashley and Fred. Disguising a tightness in his chest, he agreed to try.

      No sooner had he hung up than there was a soft knock at his door, and the Missing Persons sergeant poked his head in.

      A twenty-four year veteran of Patrol, Li had been on modified duties for nearly a year while he awaited hip surgery. Most of the time, Missing Persons was a clerical job of filling in forms, making internet and phone inquiries, and liaising with other units and agencies. Every few months a genuine mystery came along that the missing persons team could sink its investigative teeth into. Li looked as if he was long overdue.

      Green beckoned him in and watched as Li eased himself into the plastic guest chair wedged in the narrow space between the desk and the door. He had packed an extra fifty pounds onto his mid-size frame since being parked behind a desk, and his bad hip obviously complained at each new move.

      “I’m guessing this is about the missing girl,” Li said before Green could even form his question.

      Green masked his surprise. “What’s the story?”

      “So far, it’s not clear. Her name’s Meredith Kennedy, thirty-two years old, good family, no known criminal ties. Fiancé called it in last night.”

      Green’s thoughts were already racing ahead, wondering about Jules’s connection to a thirty-two-year-old from a “good family”. Jules was a lifelong bachelor at least twenty-five years her senior. “Any leads yet?”

      “Dead ends. We did the usual checks—hospitals, ambulance, accident reports—with no results. By all accounts the young woman has fallen off the face of the earth. Family hasn’t heard from her for two days. She was set to get married soon, and her fiancé and friends say she was looking forward to the big day.”

      “Banking and cellphone enquiries in the works?”

      Li nodded. “We should have that info by tomorrow.”

      “What’s the last known contact?”

      Li flipped through the file. “That’s the really interesting part. Jessica Ward, a close friend, spoke to her at 5:45 Monday evening. Our girl sounded upset, said she really had to talk to her, and could they meet somewhere for coffee. Jessica couldn’t because she was working an evening shift, so they arranged to get together the next day after Meredith’s work.”

      “That would be Tuesday? Yesterday?”

      “Yes. She never showed up, never phoned to cancel, didn’t show up for work either.”

      “Any prior history of similar behaviour? Or mental health issues?”

      Li shook his head. “Everyone says she’s pretty solid.”

      “What’s