Beautiful Lie the Dead (38 page)

The road grew narrow, hilly and slick with snow as they followed the map towards the tiny red dot Gibbs had marked at the end of the road. Gravel replaced pavement, forcing Levesque to ease off the accelerator. To make up time, she gunned it again as she rounded a corner onto a straight stretch. Careening towards them, full tilt down the centre of the road, was a dirty pick-up which showed no sign of slowing. Levesque jerked the wheel hard to the right and brought the Impala onto the shoulder just as the pick-up shot past. Green caught a glimpse of a woman at the wheel, open-mouthed in terror.

“Jesus H! That was Norah Kennedy!” He swung around to see her barely miss Gibbs's car before slewing around the corner out of sight. He grabbed Levesque's cell phone and pressed redial, grateful there was still a signal this far out. When her SQ cousin answered, he described the situation.

“She's heading south on 315, about 10 k north of Mayo. Send someone to intercept her, and call me the moment you have her!”

After he'd hung up, he sat in silence, wrestling his apprehension under control. What had freaked Norah out? Was she fleeing for her life? Going for help? Was it possible that Meredith—or Brandon—had turned on her parents?

“What next?” Levesque finally said.

“We continue. It's more important than ever that we find out what's going on. But we'll scout it out carefully before we make any move.”

“Out there, there's going to be nothing but bush and silence. No way we'll come up on it unnoticed.”

He mentally reviewed their equipment. Radios, Glocks and vests, but nothing but city boots and light winter jackets against the building storm. But how much danger could one frightened young woman present, even if she was the killer? A big if.

Levesque shook her head in disapproval as she pulled back onto the road. As they drew closer and turned down the final spur, Green had to admit she was right about being noticed. There was no sign of a cabin visible through the thick trees, but the lane was rutted with tire tracks and a hint of wood smoke drifted on the damp wind. They crept forward, peering through the blowing snow. Gradually contours took shape, filmy silhouettes that filled with detail as they came near. A silver car was parked in the lane up ahead, and further up was the angular roof line of a cabin. Green told Levesque to back up out of sight. Then all four detectives climbed out of their cars, left the car doors ajar, and stood in the falling snow, deciphering the silence. Green thought he heard a distant cry, but as he strained to listen, the snow swallowed it up. Maybe it was just an animal call or the wind in the trees.

“Someone is definitely here,” Levesque murmured. “There's a fire.”

Green sent Gibbs forward to check the vehicle. “A silver Prius, Ontario plate,” he reported upon his return, and without being asked, he slipped into his car to run the plate. Meanwhile Green studied the ground for tracks. Snow blanketed the boughs of the trees and lay in a soft, pillowy quilt on the forest floor, crisscrossed with animal tracks. He could see no boot prints, but at least two distinct sets of tire tracks overlapped in the ruts.

Gibbs returned. “Brandon Longstreet, sir.”

Green wasn't surprised. “There is only one road exit out of here, but we'll spread out through the woods and approach the cabin as quietly as we can. Bob, you go left side, Marie Claire right side. Zdanno, you stay with the vehicles in case he makes a run for it.”

He looked down at their city rubbers. It couldn't be helped. They fanned out and moved forward, Green staying to the edge of the road and trying to keep the Prius between him and the cabin windows. The tire tracks leading up to the Prius were partially filled in with snow, but another fresher set overlapped for part of the way before coming to a halt behind the Prius. A faint drop of oil stained the snow. The Kennedys' aging pick-up truck?

They reached the clearing, which was heavily trampled with footprints. The cabin sat in the middle, a squat, rectangular bungalow made of wooden planks aged almost black. Its back door faced the lane and a boarded up screen porch stretched the length of the opposite side. Down the slope beyond, the flat expanse of a lake glistened in the muted light. A ramshackle shed and outhouse sat at the far edge of the clearing, and firewood was stacked high under a lean-to behind the house. An axe was propped against the lean-to, and splinters of wood littered the snow nearby. Levesque had taken cover behind the outhouse, Gibbs the woodpile. The cabin looked peaceful. No murmur of voices, no shuffling of movement. From their positions, the other two squinted through the snow at him questioningly. Green almost laughed. The three of them made a great take-down team.

He undid the holster of his Glock as he made a run for the back stoop. Nothing. He peered through the small window into the gloom of the cabin. There was a single light illuminating the kitchen, but the rest of the space was in shadow. The boarded up screens prevented all but a few shafts of pale daylight from penetrating the interior. However, it looked like one large room with a kitchen at one end and a chair and sofa in front of a woodstove at the other end.

The whole place looked deserted. Green tried the door, which creaked open easily beneath his touch. He signalled to the others and slipped inside. The smell of wood smoke and damp wool was strong, and his footsteps clomped on the plank floors as he checked out the rooms. In addition to the main room, there were two minuscule bedrooms along the back. One bedroom contained bunk beds that were stripped bare. He paused in the doorway to the second bedroom. The double bed was rumpled and unmade, the one pillow bunched in a ball and the heavy duvet tossed half on the floor. A heater glowed orange in the corner.

He heard footsteps and returned to find Gibbs and Levesque examining the kitchen. “No one here,” he said.

“The fridge is stocked and one stove burner is still warm,”

Levesque replied. “Someone's been here recently.”

Green took in the living room. There was an old Fifties-style sofa against one wall which had a pillow and blanket bunched up on it. Two logs were burning down in the wood stove, but the room was still toasty. On the pine table at the edge of the kitchen sat an open carton of milk, two empty coffee cups and two plates with traces of egg yolk. The sink was piled with more dirty dishes, including two dinner plates.

He inspected the contents of the fridge and cupboards before peering out the window to consider the tire tracks in the laneway. “Two people were here since last night. Norah Kennedy arrived this morning after breakfast was over. She doesn't appear to have even shared a cup of coffee, so we can assume she didn't stay long. She left in a hell of a hurry. But there's no sign of disturbance in this room. Nothing knocked over or broken.” He paused to look out the side window down the slope to the lake. “Brandon appears to have come last night in time to have some dinner, and he slept on the sofa. Meredith, I would say, had a restless night on the double bed.”

Levesque had been watching him and now she broke into a smile. Respect or disbelief, he wondered. He hoped she'd taken note.

“The question is,” he continued, “how did Meredith get here? You can hardly grab a cab or a bus.”

“Oh!” Gibbs flushed. “Th-there's an old car parked behind the woodshed. It looks abandoned.”

Green looked out the side window again. From this angle he could just see the hood of a red car hidden behind the shed. The hood was clear of snow, not what one would expect from a car left there for the winter.

They went outside to check out the car and the surroundings.

Snowshoe and cross-country ski tracks radiated out from the clearing in several directions. One trampled path led down to the lake, another into the pine woods. Several of the trails were partially filled by the falling snow but some, including a trail of boot prints, looked fresh.

He was about to radio SQ to request a full search and rescue team when a blur of movement in the woods caught his eye. Another. Someone wearing a brown jacket and snow shoes. The figure was approaching fast, thrashing and slipping as he tried to run. Ragged breathing filled the still air. A few minutes later the figure burst into the clearing and looked around, red-faced and gasping. It was Brandon..

“Oh, thank God!” he said, doubling over to catch his breath.

“I thought I heard cars.”

“What's going on?”

“Meredith's out there! She's run away, and she doesn't have a jacket or proper gear. Not even a map or compass. The lake isn't frozen yet, and I'm afraid she might fall through. She's not thinking straight.”

“How long has she been out and what is she wearing?”

“She's been gone about two hours. She left when her parents arrived. But it's cold, and she's only got a sweater and woollen slippers.”

“Hat and mitts?”

Brandon shook his head. “I know it's a short time, but in this weather, hypothermia—”

“She's not going to freeze in two hours,” Green said. “Let's go inside and get a Sûreté du Québec search team out here. When we find her, we're going to need a good fire and hot water ready.”

Inside, Green sent Gibbs to brew a fresh pot of coffee and Levesque to radio SQ to include cold water rescue equipment. Drawn by the excited voices, Zdanno radioed from his post by the cars. “Any sign of that SQ back-up?” Green asked him.

“No sign of anything but two deer, looking spooked,” Zdanno replied.

Green had no time to dwell on where the back-up was. He turned to Brandon. “Tell me what happened this morning.”

The young man was red and perspiring, but still shivering.

“She was calm this morning. We talked half the night. She wasn't freaked out. She said she couldn't tell me why she left, could never tell me, but I just had to trust her. She had to think some things out, she said, and get some results back—”

“Results?”

“She sent some samples for DNA testing to this private lab in Winnipeg. Just double-checking. She seemed fine. Resigned, but fine.”

“Happy to see you?”

“Not at first. She seemed shocked that I'd tracked her down, but when I told her I hadn't told anybody where she was and I knew all about the adoption, she seemed okay with it. Until her parents showed up this morning. That's when she took off.”

“Wait a minute. Both parents?”

He nodded. “She didn't even want to talk to them. She saw them through the window and she said to me, ‘Get rid of them. Don't even tell them I'm here', and she grabbed her sweater and went out the opposite door. She didn't even put snowshoes on.”

Green's mind raced. “Then what?”

“They knew she was here. They saw the dishes and her jacket on the peg. I tried to say she'd gone to town, but they started to argue. They hadn't passed anyone on the road. Then they wanted to know what she'd told me and why would she be avoiding them. I said I didn't know, but I don't think they believed me. Especially Reg. By this time, quite a bit of time had passed and I kept thinking about her out there in the cold. Reg and I wanted to go after her, but Norah was trying to persuade him not to. With his weight and drinking, he's a heart attack waiting to happen. When I left, they were still arguing, but their truck's gone, so I guess they finally left.”

Green felt himself grow cold. “We met the truck. Only Norah was in it.”

Brandon frowned in surprise, but before he could voice the thought on all their minds, Levesque reappeared from the bedroom. “SQ was delayed because this crazy woman had crashed her truck into the ditch and she flagged them down in hysterics. Her husband had killed a woman, she said, and now he's so upset she doesn't know what he'll do.”

* * *

Norah was able to tell Green very little over the radio about the risk Reg presented. She was barely coherent. “No, he doesn't have a firearm,” she said, “but then he didn't have one the night he went out after Lise Gravelle either, and that didn't stop him. He's a strong man when he's in a state. Reg loves Meredith with all his heart, but he's afraid she'll never forgive him for killing her real mother. I just…don't know.”

“We can't wait for the SQ,” Green said when he signed off. Out the window, the snow was falling more thickly now. He knew it would be obliterating the tracks and wiping out all chance of picking up Meredith's trail. Yet how far could they get in city boots that had neither the traction nor the protection for deep snow hiking?

“Brandon, how far did you track her trail?”

Joining him at the window, Brandon gestured to the right alongside the lake. “Maybe a kilometre along the edge of the lake. It's rough going through the bush and there's nothing else out there. I remember Tanya saying there were no cottages on the other side of the lake. It's part of the Papineau reserve over there. Acres and acres of bush. If she was trying to run away…”

“Are you sure you were on the right trail?”

“I'm not sure of anything. I was trying to follow the prints. It was hard to tell which were hers, but they seemed to go out on the lake.”

Green had started to pull on his winter coat again. “How deep is the snow?”

He gestured to the city boots Green was wearing. “Too deep for those. But there are spare boots in the closet.”

At that moment Levesque came back in juggling skis and poles. “These were in the shed.”

Green eyed them dubiously. Being an inner-city working class boy, he had mastered skating, but Sharon had never managed to get him on skis.

“You can wear my snowshoes. I'll use the skis.” Brandon said, already unlacing his boots. As if he sensed Green's hesitation, he gave him a sharp look. “I'm going with you. You may need a doctor out there.”

Green weighed the alternatives unhappily. With a panicked, potentially dangerous man on the loose, the search party was no place for a civilian. Yet the man knew what trail he'd taken and his medical training could be an asset. In the end, Brandon made his mind up for him by hefting a knapsack onto his back.