Beautiful Lie the Dead

by Barbara Fradkin

  Green was afraid he’d be disappointed it wasn’t a Nintendo Wii game he’d been angling for, but he brandished it with delight.

  “Cool! We’re almost finished Tom Sawyer.”

  Green opened his own present, a CD from some indie rock band he’d never heard of. Bit by bit, his daughter was dragging his musical taste out of the eighties into the modern age.

  Sid was looking at his own present, his chin quivering. It was a framed photo of Hannah with her soft orange curls and her sparkling hazel eyes. She’d come a long way from the blue Mohawk and corpse-white make-up of three years ago. She had taken the studs out of her eyebrow and lower lip, and she looked angelic. Across the bottom she had written in a beautiful, elegant script, “To my all-time favourite zaydie, Love Hannah.”

  She sure knows how to tug the heartstrings, Green thought. She better be coming back to us.

  THIRTEEN

  It was just past eight o’clock Saturday morning when Green headed east on the highway towards Montreal. Luckily, a crisp northwest wind had blown away all danger of snow, and the morning sky was already a rich blue. The rising sun seared his eyes.

  The four-lane highway was nearly deserted. Setting cruise control, he slipped his new CD into the player and settled in to enjoy his morning coffee and bagel. He had intended to use the two-hour drive to sort out his thoughts on the case and to plan his day, but the indie band was so good that he found himself listening to it over and over, fascinated by the guitar riffs and flourishes hidden in the harmony. Fascinated too by how similar Hannah’s and his tastes were. Before he knew it, the warehouses and big box stores of the West Island were whizzing by and up ahead rose the majestic twin humps of Mount Royal, topped by the rounded dome of St. Joseph’s Oratory on the right and by the white tower of the Université de Montréal on the left.

  Compared to Ottawa, which was confounded by three rivers, a canal, two lakes and a severe shortage of bridges, Montreal did not pose much of a directional challenge. It did, however, present other hazards. The expressways were old, impossibly crowded, and made even narrower by three-foot snowbanks on either side. The road surface was riddled with patches and potholes. In response, Montreal drivers drove as if rules such as speed limits, lane markings and signal lights were just further inconveniences to be ignored. Boulevard Métropolitaine was transformed into a Grand Prix racing circuit, and Green needed every trick he’d ever learned in his defensive driving and emergency manoeuvres courses in order to navigate the trip across the city to the east end.

  Unlike Ottawa, which until a hundred and fifty years ago had been nothing but a rough timber town, Montreal was the birthplace of Canadian commerce. Ornate brick and limestone heritage buildings stood alongside sleek glass towers in the colourful and lively downtown core. Green was disappointed to learn, however, that instead of being housed in the new Montreal Police headquarters on legendary St. Urbain Street, Major Crimes was located in what looked like a glorified shopping mall way out on Sherbrooke Street East. At the height of Saturday morning, cars fought for space as Christmas shoppers tried to get at the shops along the commercial strip, and Green nearly missed the unprepossessing building amid the crush of chain stores and discount hotels. The only advantage to its location, he admitted grudgingly, was quick access to the expressways that crisscrossed the city.

  He was relieved to find state-of-the-art security inside the building with full-body turnstiles controlled by a coded keypad, and a front desk enclosed behind glass that Green assumed was bullet-proof. The ongoing war with Montreal’s biker gangs had been ugly.

  Green stopped at the desk to introduce himself. The head of Specialized Investigations had promised to obtain the necessary search warrants and to assign one of the weekend investigators to assist Green in the Lise Gravelle case. The man had sounded brusque and impatient on the phone, however, even when Green had dusted off his best French, so he was not holding out much hope. He was pleasantly surprised when a huge black man came off the elevator and bulldozed through the turnstile. He would have looked more at home on a football field than he did in his polyester suit, but his broad smile was dazzling against his ebony skin.

  “Inspector Green! Detective Sergeant Magloire. Jean Pierre to my friends.” He engulfed Green’s hand in a crushing handshake. Magloire had a deep gravelly voice and a slight accent that sounded like African tinged with French Canadian. Green guessed it was Haitian.

  “Mike,” he managed through rattling teeth.

  “You must be tired. Hungry. The warrant’s not quite ready. You want to see our offices? No, I bet you want to eat.”

  Since Green’s bagel was now a distant memory, he nodded. “Food would be nice, if there’s some place close by.”

  “I know exactly the place. It’s a bit of a drive, but on our way out to the victim’s home.”

  “But the warrants—”

  “Don’t worry about them.” Magloire tossed on his coat as he strode down the front stairs, leaving Green hustling to keep up. He realized he’d been managed. With fluent ease, Magloire had steered him out of the police station and away from the tardy paperwork. Magloire selected an unmarked Impala from the lot and squealed its tires as he accelerated into the line of traffic headed west along Sherbrooke. He drove the staff car one-handed, weaving in and out of the traffic at a speed that left Green clinging to the shoulder strap.

  Magloire grinned. “Montreal is a living thing, full of fight,” he said. “She does her best to turn you upside down. You have to push back.”

  They zipped past thickly treed parks and the shiny silver dome of the Olympic stadium before heading deeper into the older French parts of Montreal. The cityscape changed gradually from modest residential duplexes to an ad hoc mix of hospitals, agencies and older tenements, their weathered brick and limestone façades pressing close to the street. At boulevard St-Laurent, he turned right into the bumper to bumper traffic inching up the historic street. Magloire began a running patter about the gentrification of the Main, pointing out the strip clubs and drug dealers side by side with fashionable boutiques. All the while he was smiling as if hugely pleased with himself.

  When he slipped the car into a no-parking spot in front of a nondescript storefront, Green looked up at the sign, Chez Schwartz, Charcuterie Hebraïque de Montréal, and realized how thoroughly he had been managed. Schwartz’s Main Hebrew Deli was known around the world for its exquisite smoked meat and its dubious ambiance. Briskets and gallon jars of peppers were piled high in the front window. Green eyed Magloire with a new respect.

  Even in the winter, the line-up of customers straggled down the block. Ignoring the glares of those in line, Magloire pushed inside, where the harried waiter immediately caught his eye. The tiny place was packed with customers crammed into banquette-style tables along the wall. Miraculously two vacant chairs opened up in a spacious corner and the waiter gestured to them to sit down. This gives community policing a whole new meaning, Green thought, reminded that in Montreal, alliances and understanding were everything. From the lowliest sex trade worker on the street corner to the CEO of the largest construction firm, everyone knew someone to watch their back.

  The menu was printed on the placemat, but Magloire ordered for both of them before Green could even decipher it. Smoked meat sandwiches with fries.

  “And a side of peppers,” Green shouted at the waiter’s disappearing back.

  The waiter turned, his grease-stained apron flapping. “Hot?”

  “As hot as you got.”

  The waiter scurried off, and Magloire gave Green his trademark huge grin. “You been here before.”

  “Not here, but it’s a legend.” He leaned forward to reassert control. “Jean Pierre, I’m on a tight timeline here. When will the warrant be ready?”

  “By the time we finish lunch. I told them to bring it here.”

  “Good. Meanwhile, what have you guys uncovered about Lise Gravelle?”

  “Apart from getting the warrant, not much. We’re trying t
o find next of kin but she appears to be alone. Parents dead, one sibling—a sister—estranged. No children or husbands. There may be nobody to claim her or bury her.”

  “Not even cousins? Nieces or Nephews?”

  “We’re still doing inquiries. The sister hasn’t lived in the province since 1982, so the trail is stone cold.” Magloire recited all this from memory, reminding Green again that beneath the easy cheer and big smile, the man was no fool. But so far there was no apparent connection to Meredith Kennedy or the Longstreets.

  “Where did she work?” Green asked.

  “Here and there. Semi-skilled, for the most part, like secretarial work, sales. We’re still checking background. The local PDQ—sorry, that’s Poste de Quartier, neighbourhood police station—did some inquiries when her neighbour reported her missing, but to be honest, it wasn’t a high priority for them.”

  “Is her neighbourhood a high-crime area?”

  “No, no. But with the snowstorm, and the Christmas preparations...” Magloire shrugged as if no further explanation were needed. “I grew up in Côte des Neiges. It’s mostly low-income, immigrants, students, families struggling to pay the bills. Lise Gravelle would be just one of thousands who live alone in a cheap apartment.”

  “Well, maybe there will be some clues there to tell us where she worked, or why she went to Ottawa.” Or why she died, he was thinking, but then two enormous smoked meat sandwiches arrived, and their fragrant succulence drove all other thoughts from his mind.

  * * *

  Brandon sat in his car staring at the huge stone mansion on the hill. He’d never been inside. His mother, only connected to the Longstreets by marriage, didn’t merit an invitation, although to hear her talk about his Great Uncle Cyril, it was just as well. Cyril did not entertain, he summoned, and family members didn’t receive a summons unless they were being given instructions on how to run their life or a reprimand on how they had failed to.

  Cyril was a bachelor, now well into his eighties, and he lived in the house on Summit Circle that he’d inherited from his parents. The very air smelled of money and privilege. Here, on the western summit of Mount Royal, the denizens of the graceful old limestone homes and modern, multi-million dollar mansions controlled the fate and pulse of the city below them.

  Brandon recalled vague speculation from other relatives that Cyril had been normal enough until he’d spent three years in a German POW camp and the woman he’d planned to marry had eloped with his best friend. Brandon suspected there was more to the story, but among the Longstreet clan, communication through innuendo and understatement had been honed to a fine art. No one liked Uncle Cyril, and in fact those who’d felt the lashing of his tongue despised him, but no one dared reject him outright. Spending beyond their trust funds was another skill the younger generations of Longstreets had honed to a fine art. Uncle Cyril was sitting on millions, and some day he was going to die.

  Brandon’s mother had never cared about the millions, and neither did Brandon. She had built her own legend, and he had his own dreams. He and Meredith.

  It was the thought of Meredith that forced him out of the car. He would face anything, slay any monster, to find her again. He had not called ahead, preferring to catch the old man off guard and give him less chance to refuse. Or to sharpen his knives. He’d stayed Friday night with his aunt, his father’s sister, and when he’d told her his plans, she’d been appalled.

  “You don’t sneak up on Cyril, Brandon. You don’t try to outfox him because you will lose. He aims for the jugular, and he’ll tell you things that will cut you to the bone. Believe me. He hates the fact that both his brothers avoided the war and had wives, children, and now grandchildren. He hates the fact that they both had the decency to die at the height of their powers. He hates being old and shrivelled and feeble. You don’t want to surprise him.”

  Brandon had told her that he had no time for subtleties. He needed answers; Meredith’s life might depend on it. So far none of the younger Longstreets, including his aunt, had been able to supply them. Meredith had not contacted any of them on her mysterious trip to Montreal, nor had they known anything was amiss until they heard about the missing persons search.

  “What makes you think it’s even about us?” Aunt Bea asked. “Maybe she was visiting her own side of the family.”

  “And I will visit them too, but she doesn’t have much family left in Montreal. Most of her cousins have moved to Toronto, Ottawa, or Vancouver, part of the great Anglo-Quebec Diaspora.” He balled his fists in concentration. “I think she discovered something, or someone told her something, that freaked her out. Maybe that’s because I learned something awful too. My father hanged himself.” He gauged her reaction. “The trouble is there were absolutely no details as to why.”

  Aunt Bea sucked in her breath, blinking rapidly. For a moment she said nothing, as if choosing a course. “That’s as much as I know, Brandon. I was away at Cambridge when my brother died, and I got this cryptic phone call from mother. Not hysterical. Longstreets don’t do hysterical. Your father was the golden boy of the family, the one to carry the Longstreet banner forward into the next generation. I know that sounds ridiculous in today’s world, but remember this was nearly half a century ago and the air up on the west mountain was pretty rarefied. Harvey was supposed to use law as a springboard to go into politics. There had been a Longstreet in the Senate and a few at the helm of Crown Corporations, but none of them had ever been an MP. There was talk of a cabinet position, Liberal, of course. Maybe even the successor to Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He had the same élan, the same silver tongue. But my brother wouldn’t play the game. Blew off the Liberal fundraisers in favour of student protest rallies and wrote scathing articles for the Montreal Star on the corruption of the elite. I loved him for it, but Uncle Cyril was not amused.”

  Brandon digested the news with surprise. His father had been an activist. Maybe the two of them were not so different after all. Why had his mother never told him this? Aunt Bea sighed, her eyes shining at the memory. “But in the end, it was his tawdry side that caught up with him. Another Longstreet fine art—dalliances with common girls that have to be hushed up at all costs, while the Longstreet wives keep up the brave front.”

  Brandon struggled to hide his surprise, but his aunt was too quick. She squinted at him. “Ah. You didn’t know. I’m sorry, I thought you did.”

  “Another detail my mother failed to mention.”

  “What does it matter, Brandon? It’s all a long time ago. He was a handsome, charismatic teacher surrounding by nubile, adoring co-eds. The oldest cliché in the book. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, or your mother, both of whom he adored. It doesn’t diminish his legacy as an idealist or a human rights lawyer, either.”

  “Did my mother know about the affair?”

  “Affairs.” She scrutinized him. “She did. Not the specifics of any one, probably, but the concept, yes. She’d been one of those nubile, adoring students herself. She knew his weakness.”

  Brandon pushed the revelation around in his mind. His mother had known this seamy side but had continued to paint him as a saint in his son’s eyes. Well, what would he have done in her place, he wondered. Son, your father was a great mind, but as a man, he was a cheating little shit.

  “Did the whole family know this?”

  “I’m sure, and if they didn’t, the circumstances of his death would have given them a clue. Harvey always had way too much fun with life.”

  Brandon studied her discomfort and finally the light dawned.

  “You mean it wasn’t suicide at all.”

  “Harvey was about as depressed and suicidal as a new winner of Lotto 649. But...” She broke off, looking embarrassed. Aunt Bea was his favourite aunt. Among the earnest Ladies Auxiliary types who peopled the older branches of his family tree, she was the one with the heart of a rebel. She used her money and influence to campaign for wildlife conservation and waved her Green Party membership card triumphantly at family fun
ctions. Brandon knew she was trying to spare him.

  But he’d seen far more bizarre sexual experiments during his years in ER. “Extreme sexual sport was right up his alley?” he said gently.

  She flushed. “Obviously it was never proven. But that’s the real reason the whole thing was hushed up. The official coroner’s verdict was suicide, but really neither he nor the police did a lick of investigation.” She leaned forward to grasp both his hands. “I’m sorry, Brandon. I promised my mother, and yours, that I would never, ever tell you. But honestly, if you’re going to see Uncle Cyril, you need to know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, of all the Longstreet men, Cyril was the only one who disapproved. He was outraged by your father’s behaviour, I think deep down because he himself had been betrayed by infidelity. It made him very unforgiving, another reason why the circumstances of Harvey’s death were suppressed. A lot was riding on that lie. Harvey’s legacy as a professor and lawyer, his reputation as a father and husband, and of course, a family fortune.”

  Brandon frowned. “My mother’s never cared about that, never taken a penny she didn’t earn.”

  Bea’s hands tightened spasmodically around his, and for a moment she looked about to speak. Then she released his hands and shook her head as if to dispel the thought. “Of course not. But his reputation and his legacy, she guarded that. She was fiercely loyal.”

  That she was, he thought now, as he steeled himself to meet the legendary patriarch who’d spurned her all these years. He was beyond caring whether his father’s name was attacked by a bitter, judgmental old man. If she had visited him, Brandon only wanted to know what the old man might have told the woman he loved. Meredith was a thoroughly modern woman who would have been unfazed by this ancient tale of infidelity and sexual misadventure. What else might she have learned?