Beautiful Lie the Dead (20 page)

“No,”the man replied in near-perfect English. “The investigator from St. Laurent station is off-duty, but one of our patrol officers will assist you. She took the original MisPers call and has been active on follow-up.”

Green wondered how high up the order to cooperate had originated, and why. On the other hand, perhaps the neighbourhood patrol constable was just eager to see a high-level homicide investigation in action. The latter, he decided when Agent Yvette Tessier came bouncing through a door at the back. She looked impossibly young and impossibly tall, matching Magloire inch for inch in height, although half his girth. Her short black hair was spiked, almost as if to add even more height, and her expression radiated focus. She pumped Green's hand with enthusiasm.

“Any assistance we can offer, Inspector, any witness you want to interview, Detective Sergeant Giotti has authorized me to provide.”

“Merci.”
Green rescued his hand. Tessier's English was heavily accented, but he decided it was better than his French. “I'd like to review what your missing persons investigation has uncovered so far.”

“Certainly! I have all that prepared for you.” Tessier led the way into a large, immaculate conference room. A file folder sat in the centre of the table and a coffee maker gurgled in the corner. The smell of over-brewed coffee overpowered all else. Tessier reached for the carafe. “Coffee?”

When both detectives demurred in hasty unison, Tessier's face fell. Recovering quickly, she flipped open the folder. “Lise Gravelle,” she began, reading from the top page. “Fifty-four year old white single female, reported missing by her neighbour in the next apartment on December 15 at 16:30 hours. Mme Gravelle asked her to take care of her dog for Monday night, but when she not return by Tuesday, she get worried. After she keep the dog a day, she call us. The neighbour did not know the missing individual before she move there and did not know her family or associates. However, I interviewed the building property manager. He said that Mme Gravelle is living there since one year and work at St. Mary's Hospital as a clerk. He had no complaints about her, and she always pay her rent on time. No next of kin is listed on the rent form.”

Tessier pulled out a sheaf of papers that looked like an action log. “We check hospitals, clinics, ambulance, other police, no reports. I interview her employer and colleagues at St. Mary's. She quit work—” She shook her head sharply. “
Non
, left work at noon last Monday, she said because of the storm, but a colleague say she seemed upset—”

“Upset in what way?” Green interjected.

“
Distraite
is what the colleague said. Like something was on her mind.”

“You mean scared, worried, sad?”

Tessier paused a moment, frowning into space as if trying to replay the interview. “My English is not one hundred per cent, but I think maybe nervous.”

Nervous, Green thought. Rather different from frightened or sad. “Did this colleague know why, or offer any theory?”

“No, sir.” Tessier shifted uncomfortably. “Nobody seem to know Lise very well, not even her colleague and neighbours. After one year, normally people make some friends, but Lise didn't mix. Never go out with the girls after work, always say she has to go home because of her dog. I have the impression she's a solitary person.”

“What about the neighbour who reported her missing? Had she any information on what happened or why Lise was upset?”

Tessier referred to the file. “The last time she talk to Lise, it was Monday when she ask her to care for her dog. Lise didn't appear upset at this moment, on the contrary she was happy. Said she was celebrating.”

“Why?”

“That's all she said.”

“What time was this?”

“Sixteen hours—four o'clock. Just after.”

Interesting, Green thought. On Monday she left work early, looking nervous, but by four o'clock she was celebrating. A few hours later she phoned Meredith Kennedy, they argued, and a few hours later still, she was dead on a street in Ottawa, not five minutes from Meredith's fiancé's home.

He glanced at Magloire. “Let's take a look at her apartment, see what she was up to.”

Tessier looked up from her file, a worried frown on her face. “I hope that it was permitted, sir. Yesterday when I learn she died, I take her photo and I ask on the streets close to her apartment, and the shop and restaurant. Many people recognize her, see her walk with her dog, but no one talk to her except for ‘nice day'. She appeared very ordinary and was taking very good care of her dog.”

“Good work. Anyone seem especially curious or worried about her?”

Tessier took out her notebook and busied herself flipping slowly through it, as if trying to recapture each encounter. Her excitement faded. “No, sir. But there was many neighbours absent, because of the work day. I can go back today if you like.

Maybe I find more people at their home on Saturday.”

Green glanced at Magloire again. “Do you have officers to assist in a street canvass?”

“I can get whatever you need,” Magloire said.

“But I can do it,” Tessier said. “I know the neighbourhood very well, and not everyone is trusting the police.”

Her initiative and enthusiasm were palpable. “Okay,” Green said and turned to Magloire. “If you can get two more officers assigned to help her, that should be enough.”

Once Magloire had dealt with that, they secured some evidence bins and the three set off in convoy with Tessier leading the way. Lise Gravelle's apartment was on the third floor of a brown brick low-rise that probably dated from the period between the wars. Identical brick buildings lined either side of the street for the entire block. A lot of neighbours to canvass, Green thought, revising his estimate of the officers required. But an easy place to get lost in if one wanted to be anonymous.

They parked at the curb outside, and Green sent the eager, efficient Agent Tessier in search of the building super while he leaned against the Impala and surveyed the street. Cars were parked all along the curb, competing for road space with the snowbanks. Some cars were still covered in snow, indicating they hadn't been moved all week, whereas others were hemmed in by the latest snowplow pass. The cars were a motley collection of old American gas guzzlers, cheap Korean subcompacts, and aging Toyotas and Hondas that had probably been recycled through several owners.

Green scanned the windows of the apartment building directly across the street and caught the faint flicker of a curtain falling into place. Smiling, he counted windows to pinpoint the apartment. This was his favourite kind of neighbour, the nosy kind with too much time on their hands.

When Tessier returned with the key, he pointed out the window across the street and told her to interview all the second-floor residents on this side of the building first. Drawing her long, lean frame to attention, she set off across the street almost at a run.

Green and Magloire took the ancient elevator that rumbled slow motion through the floors until it jolted to a stop on the third. The two detectives stepped into a narrow, dimly lit hall carpeted in brown some time in the past century. The air was thick with the smell of damp wool, fried oil and diapers. On the positive side, Green noted the walls were clean and graffiti free, and all the hallway lights worked. The building was modest, but proud.

Apartment 307 had a peephole, an extra dead bolt, and a chain lock dangling on the inside. Both detectives snapped on latex gloves out of habit before stepping into the room. The stench of feces and urine hit them full force, reminding them the dog had been abandoned for some time.

“Shall I clean up?” Magloire asked, holding his nose. Green nodded and the big detective headed into the kitchen. Left alone, Green stood just inside the door to gather his first impressions of the dead woman.

She was neat, but either poor or indifferent to material possessions. The living room was small, sparse, and furnished with a Seventies-style orange sofa that she had probably picked up at the Salvation Army. A small TV, teak coffee table and gold shag carpet completed the secondhand look. But a newer IKEA desk and filing cabinet sat in the corner by the archway to the kitchen. Amazingly, the desk was uncluttered, and not a single magazine or discarded newspaper marred the order of the room. Two teacups were knocked over on the coffee table, however, and a brown stain blotched the carpet below.

In contrast to the shabby furniture, the walls were covered with stunning photographs. Some were landscapes and cityscapes, but most were black and white portraits that played with light, shadow and mood. There was a whole wall dedicated to dogs and another to small children. Green was drawn to a black and white portrait of a girl, younger than his own son but with the same luminous eyes and impish smile. She was gazing, not at the camera, but at her hand, which was reaching up towards a much larger, adult hand. She seemed to be both touching and drawing away, a study in connection and resistance that Green found fascinating. Wistfulness, yearning and connection were themes of many of the photos. Even the landscapes were exquisite but lonely—snow on gravestones, moonlight on barren trees.

Green took the photo of the girl off the wall and turned it over. On the back, the title, photographer and date were inscribed in black calligraphy. “Summer on Mount Royal, Amélie series, Lise Gravelle, 1981”. Another photo showed the same scene, but this time the little girl was looking up at a young man. The young man's profile was in partial shadow, suggesting an illusion almost out of reach.

Green turned over another photo, this one of a long-eared dog resting its muzzle on its paws mournfully. “Mon Ami, Lise Gravelle, 1989”. He crossed the room and selected a colour photo of a stream in springtime, the water rushing around the shards of ice still clinging to the bank. “Espoir, Lise Gravelle, 2002”.

Hope, he translated. A world still frozen but coming alive again. Did they mean anything—these portraits of hope and yearning and loneliness—or were they just interesting studies by a talented artist exploring human experience?

Magloire emerged from the bathroom grasping in his fingertips a smelly garbage bag, which he placed in the hall outside the door. “Where do we begin, Inspector?”

Green had no idea of the man's investigative skills, although his apparent lack of interest in the photographs on the wall was telling. He nodded towards the bedroom. “You start in there, and I'll check this desk. We're looking for...” He raised his hand to tick off his fingers. “A computer and cellphone, papers that identify friends and family, any family photos, an agenda book, address book, letters, postcards... Most importantly, any connection to Meredith Kennedy or Ottawa.”

Once Magloire had disappeared into the small room off the living room, Green took out his digital camera and methodically took pictures of every photo on the walls. He wasn't sure what use they would serve, but in a murder investigation, irrelevance was always better than regret. He then photographed the whole room from different angles before beginning a methodical search. He looked under the sofas, lifted the cushions and the carpet, leafed through the photographic and home decorating magazines stacked on the end table and the small pile of mail on the kitchen counter. Bills, flyers, charity requests—nothing out of the ordinary. He unfolded the bank statement and the credit card bill. The woman had a modest bank balance of two hundred dollars and no large deposits or withdrawals to suggest unusual activity in the last month. The credit card bill showed a similar frugality. She had paid off the card in full at the last due date and made only three small charges in the past month, to a pharmacy, a restaurant and Sears. If this woman had anyone on her Christmas gift list, she had not made her purchases early.

Green put the mail into the evidence bin, jotted down the names of the charities and turned his attention to the desk. Here too, Lise Gravelle was orderly and minimalist. The desk contained nothing but stationery supplies, stapler, sketch pads and several rolls of film. Where were all the negatives and copies of the photos on the wall? In his experience, photographers had several cameras and took hundreds of photos to get one perfect one. If her career had spanned thirty years, as the dates on the photos suggested, she had very little to show for it.

In the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, he found a modern SLR camera, a box of lenses and a whole stack of CDs. He turned the camera on and thumbed through the recent photos. Images of the snowstorm, Christmas lights and bundled up pedestrians slogging through the snow. Portraits of winter life in Montreal, providing no obvious clues to her murder. He placed the camera and CDs into the evidence bin to take back to Ottawa for closer study.

In the upper drawer, he found neat file folders labelled bills, job applications, finances, taxes. He sifted through all these carefully, seizing anything that looked promising. Lise had no major debts or unexpected sources of income. Last year's taxes showed no mention of earnings from photography, only her income from her clerical job at St. Mary's, a pittance that would have been difficult to live on. She was emerging as a solitary, cautious woman who lived a methodical life without much joy or adventure. Like her photos—a life lived on the outside.

From the back of the filing cabinet drawer, he pulled out a thick file folder with no label. Inside was a jumble of brittle, yellowed newspapers. Green glanced at the dates. 1980, 1978. He froze as a name leaped out at him from the newsprint.

Longstreet.

He sat down at the desk, his heart racing, and skimmed the newspaper articles. With one exception, they were all from 1978 and chronicled the life and death of Harvey Kent Longstreet. Obituaries, police press releases, and newspaper features in the
Montreal Star
. The one exception was an article published in the
Westmount Examiner
in 1980 announcing that Mrs. Elena Longstreet, widow of prominent McGill law professor Harvey Longstreet, had accepted a position with the prestigious Toronto law firm of McGrath, Wellington, and Associates. Mrs. Longstreet cited exciting job opportunities and a fresh start as reasons for her departure from Montreal.