“Graham McLeod. I’m a landscape architect and contractor. I was once Jennifer Grant’s fiancé.”
Watching MacNeice for a reaction—there was none—McLeod drank and wiped the foam from his lip with his thumb. “We broke up for all the wrong reasons and a few of the right ones.” He put his large hands flat on the table and took a deep breath. “We stayed friends after, but when Jenny started dating Nicholson, that ended too.”
“Why was that?”
“The obvious. Nicholson was uncomfortable with her maintaining a relationship with a former lover, let alone a fiancé. He was jealous for years, and even after they were married, he was convinced that she was seeing me on the sly. She wasn’t.”
“Until?”
“What do you mean?” McLeod sat back in his seat.
“We’re not here now because Nicholson was jealous for no reason. When did you reconnect?”
McLeod tilted his head, studying the detective. “A year before she disappeared, she called me. She said he’d struck her and after she ran into the bathroom and locked the door, he kicked it in. He’d punched her so hard in the stomach that she threw up. If it hadn’t been for her vomiting, she thought he would have beaten her senseless.” He spoke slowly, as if he was pulling a file from somewhere back in his head, but he wasn’t finished.
MacNeice took out his notebook and pen. McLeod finished his lager and waited for him to look up again.
“She called in sick at the school. I told her to meet me here.” He wiped his mouth and looked around the bar. There were tears in his eyes that he wanted to hide from MacNeice. In a moment, another pint arrived. McLeod took a first sip, then said, “She had a welt on her cheek, and when she lifted up her sweater, there was a deep bruise on her stomach.”
“Did she report the beating?” MacNeice asked, making his notes.
“No. She was too embarrassed or ashamed. She didn’t want it getting out that Nicholson was abusive. I asked if she wanted me to talk to him, but Jenn didn’t want that, in part because she was worried about what Nicholson might do to me, and what he’d do to her afterwards. She told me that this wasn’t the first time it had happened. Worse, if I’d spoken to Dave, he’d have been convinced she’d been seeing me all along.”
MacNeice was nursing his lager, considering whether McLeod could be responsible for Nicholson’s death.
“I insisted we take photographs of the bruises. I went out to the truck and got the camera I’d been using out at the botanical gardens. I took her into the washroom.” He nodded to the narrow hallway beyond the bar.
“What did you do with the photographs?”
“Nothing. I was going to show them to the police after Jennifer disappeared, but then she called me from Los Angeles. She sounded happy. In a few weeks, she said, she’d like me to come out and join her.”
“And Dylan?”
“Dylan was four. Nicholson made it sound like the kid was deserted. No way. She loved that boy.”
But McLeod couldn’t explain why she hadn’t come back for her son. The woman she was staying with had come home one day and found a short note. McLeod recited it: “On my way back, to where I once belonged. Thank you sooo much for taking care of me. Love, Jenn.”
“I’m told she had a wild streak,” said MacNeice. “Do you think she just took off?”
McLeod hung his head for a long time, studying the foamy head on his beer. When he looked up, he said, “When we were in our twenties, we did a lot of weed. Does that suggest a wild streak?”
“Alcohol? Heavier drugs?”
“Never anything to excess. Sure, we would get drunk together from time to time. I’d take her out to one of my projects and we’d lie down on a rock or on the grass, sipping bourbon and looking at the stars. But we’d also be laughing and planning our future together. She wasn’t wild or addicted to anything. If anything, she was worried about how much I liked to get high, and with good reason. But I’ve straightened out my act. I work too hard to manage anything stronger than a few lagers.”
“So what did you think happened?”
Again his eyes welled up. “You know … her note, the Beatles lyric about getting back? I took it to mean she’d gone off to find herself.” Again he looked briefly around the bar. “I imagined her living somewhere in British Columbia on a back-to-the-land farm, or gone to Australia, because once, when we were high, she talked about teaching somewhere in the Outback because they needed great teachers. Two years after she disappeared, I got married.”
“Are you still married?”
He smiled. “No. I realized I had married someone who looked a bit like Jenn, but she wasn’t her. We got divorced after a couple of years. No kids.”
McLeod said he took to searching Jenn’s name on Google, thinking someday she would suddenly pop up. “I’d be okay if I found out she was living somewhere, married with a dozen kids, just as long as she’s happy.”
MacNeice sensed McLeod was working hard to persuade himself that was true. “Do you think she’s still alive?”
The man exhaled sharply, coughed hard, then took a long pull on his lager. “I have to … I have to.”
“Did you kill David Nicholson?”
McLeod stared at MacNeice, maybe trying to decipher if he was serious. “No, man, I didn’t kill him.”
“Why ask me to come here? If you have nothing to hide, why not give your name and meet me downtown?”
“Because this is where I last saw her—right where you’re sitting.” He inhaled whatever emotion was rising in his throat.
MacNeice drained his lager. “Why did your engagement to Jennifer Grant fail?”
“We’d fallen in love mostly under the influence of one drug or another. We woke up six months before the wedding and decided to clean up our act before the big day. Within a month we were barely talking. Suddenly, the differences in our lives seemed greater than what held us together. We were dreaming different dreams.” He pushed the glass aside for a moment. “Then she married David and I realized what a huge mistake I’d made.” He slid the glass back and cradled it in his hands.
MacNeice grabbed his coat and stood up. “Meaning your dreams weren’t different?”
“Not at all.” McLeod handed the detective a slightly crumpled card on which he’d written his home and cell numbers.
MacNeice gave him his card in return.
McLeod said, “Hope the weather clears up, for both our sakes.”
“I’ll come by and get those photographs from you.”
“No need. I’ve got them here. The negatives too.” He reached under his Barbour and pulled out a manila envelope labelled “McLeod Landscaping” with an embossed Jack pine logo.
MacNeice took it and thanked him. He left McLeod ordering another pint.
He waited until he was back in the Chevy before he opened the envelope. The four eight-by-ten-inch black and white prints were worn around the edges, but there was no wear or tear in the images. A frightened-looking woman gazed into the lens. The blue black of the bruise on her left cheek was clear, and in a profile shot, McLeod had zoomed in on the bruise. His face and the camera lens were reflected in the bar’s bathroom mirror. The next set of prints were of her stomach. The blow had landed just below her rib cage, again on the left side.
“He was right-handed,” MacNeice said to himself.
She held the sweater up, the flash catching the glint of the wedding ring on her finger. At the bottom, her navel fluttered out of focus. She was nervous, or frightened, or maybe even turned on by being in a closed bathroom with a former lover. He put the photos back in the envelope, then called into the division. “Aziz, we’re going back to Nicholson’s house. I need to check something out.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I want to look at the second-floor bathroom door. I’ll tell you why when I get there.” He started the engine. “Where’s the boy?”
“The Children’s Aid have got him: he wouldn’t go with the grandparents. The caseworker says they’ll try
to put him in foster care somewhere near his school, but she couldn’t guarantee it. And there’s something else …”
MacNeice’s stomach tightened.
“I took a call from the uniform on the barge. They found something and sent down a diver to check it out before they try to raise it. They’ll know within the hour.”
“Vertesi and Williams?”
“They’ve just left to interview Dylan’s grandparents and uncle.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Meet me in the parking lot.” They would go first to the Nicholson house, and then out to Cootes Paradise.
Chapter 15
He and Aziz stood inside the front door. The silence inside the house was oppressive. It hung like humidity. The pillows on the couch were still askew from their visit, the same books were on the table and yet nothing and everything had changed.
MacNeice turned on the second-floor hall lights and they went upstairs. “Aziz, check the father’s room again: see if something speaks to you.”
She put on her gloves, crossed the threshold and looked slowly about the room.
MacNeice glanced into Dylan’s room. There were sweaters and jeans folded hastily on the bed; presumably, they’d be picked up later. Retrieving his Maglite, MacNeice walked over to the bathroom door. He scanned the exterior frame, feeling along the edge of the painted wood for a seam or a joint out of place that might show where it had been repaired years before. Nothing stood out.
He went into the bathroom and closed the door, jiggling the handle to see if there was play—there wasn’t. He shone his flashlight up the wall next to the door frame; everything looked normally worn, needing a new paint job. And there it was, near the handle: a stress crack in two of the small white wall tiles. The vertical framing was different on that side of the door, slightly wider and also shallower than the rest.
He found Aziz sitting on the bed in the master bedroom, opening a small metal box she’d found in the drawer of the nightstand. It was empty but for three keys on a wire key chain. Two looked like spare door keys, but the third was a smaller gold key with a distinctive round head with an engraved envelope on it—a P.O. box key. She handed them to MacNeice and went back to searching the drawer.
MacNeice left the room with the keys, wondering why a high school English teacher needed a P.O. box. Neither of the door keys fit the side door lock, so he went through to check the garden door and the front door—the keys didn’t fit those either.
Aziz came downstairs as MacNeice stood staring at the keys. “Could they be from a house they used to live in?”
“They’ve lived here Dylan’s whole life. Why would you keep keys that old?”
“Sentimental?”
“A post office box key isn’t sentimental.” He put them in his coat pocket and held open the front door.
Soft rain fell in sheets on the caramel water of Cootes Paradise. The dark grey barge looked gigantic and menacingly out of place. Diesel smoke burped intermittently from the stack, and the two Volvo diesel engines shattered the damp tranquility like a Harley on a quiet street.
Seeing the Chevy slow to a stop on the low road, the cop on board climbed into the black inflatable, along with one of the divers in a wetsuit. Aziz and MacNeice were standing at the gravel shore when it slid, motor up, to a soft landing. The cop in the bow introduced himself. “Corporal Danny Fournier. And this is Marine Unit Constable Jun Takeuchi.” Fournier glanced back at the barge. “It’s a male, sir. He was tied to an anchor.”
Takeuchi climbed over the side and swung the dinghy parallel to the shore, holding it as they got in. Once they were settled, knees together like they were attending a church picnic, Takeuchi swung the inflatable around, shoving it farther into the water. He slipped quickly on board, lowered the engine, pulled the cord, and they glided through the rain. Aziz had her head down and her collar up, trying to protect herself from the downpour, but MacNeice lifted his face into it. The closer they got, the larger the barge loomed above them. As Takeuchi held the dinghy alongside the ladder, he said, “Mind your step and please hold on to the railing—the ladder is slick.”
The platform, with its great sheets of black non-skid steel, glistened from cranes to wheelhouse. The smell of diesel and grease dominated, augmented only slightly by the scent of the bay and its surrounding vegetation. Underneath it all was the distinct and creepy-sweet odour of human decay. The shiniest drenched surface by far was the black plastic sheeting that covered the body. MacNeice and Aziz stood together as Takeuchi pulled it back to reveal the head and shoulders. He paused there as if considering whether to go all the way, and MacNeice impatiently gestured for him to remove it all.
At first MacNeice couldn’t make out what he was seeing. It was as if a large black leaf had settled on a black, partially deflated, balloon. Then the face came into terrible focus. Steel wire was wound tightly around the neck, embedded in the flesh, with two small makeshift handles protruding. The hair—matted with mud on one side—was full and there was little distinction between it and the face colour—both were black. The upper torso was covered in a dark blue fleece pullover under which was a grey or possibly white jersey. The lower torso was—with the exception of black briefs and one white athletic sock—blue and grey and naked. The underwear was twisted, a testicle showing.
Blue nylon rope was still coiled around the body, spiralling tight enough that it bit into the torso, then disappearing in the fleece where the body bloated around it. The divers had set the anchor beside the body’s right shoulder, still tethered to the line. Aziz turned and walked to the side of the barge for a moment, staring out at the water.
MacNeice took out his camera and bent over the body. “Did your dredging bring up anything else?”
“No, sir, though we kept going, thinking we’d be able to find his pants at least.” Takeuchi looked out to Dundurn Bay. “They could have been tossed farther out, on the way over or back.”
“Roll up the sleeves of that sweater,” MacNeice said.
Takeuchi crouched to pull the soggy sleeve up on the left arm to the elbow.
“The right arm, too, please.”
Takeuchi leaned to pull at the sleeve, which bled water into the diamond treads of the deck near MacNeice’s feet. A few inches above the wrist, red high heels and shapely legs gave way to the striped bikini, flat stomach and large breasts of a woman with her arms raised, her hands lost in a deep red mane of hair—the classic pose of a bathing beauty.
“Hello, Duguald,” MacNeice said softly.
“It was done in Japan,” Takeuchi said, leaning closer. “See here, by the right shoe? In Japanese, it says, ‘Studio Tadanori, Tokyo.’ ”
“Apparently, he could make her dance,” Aziz said without turning to look.
Someone behind MacNeice said, “Yeah, well I think she’s done with dancing,” which sent the barge crew into uneasy snickers.
To be absolutely certain, MacNeice asked Takeuchi to show him the chest. Taking out a long knife from a sheath below his knee, Takeuchi cut the spiralling line in three places, put the blade as far up inside the jersey as he could reach and thrust up. The tip appeared through the cloth, then the sweater and jersey parted in a long V, as if he’d pulled an invisible zipper. Takeuchi peeled the sweater and jersey away to reveal the upper chest. Rain pelted Duguald’s blue and grey flesh. Perhaps it was the light, or the damage and decay of being so long on the bottom, but the flag appeared more Italian than Irish—dark red rather than orange.
Driving up the hill with Aziz quiet beside him in the passenger seat, MacNeice called and alerted Mary Richardson to expect another body from Cootes Bay, then checked her progress on David Nicholson.
She said there wasn’t any. What remained in the wagon had been so riddled with shrapnel and burnt from the blast that it was effectively charred mincemeat. She could say that he’d had lower leg issues, likely varicose veins, but even that was speculative given the damage.
“And you should know that I checked the young wom
an’s fingers to see if there was muscle memory that might indicate she wore a ring—but there wasn’t any,” Richardson said. “Tell me about the latest one.” Her voice echoed in the large, cold lab.
“Well, he isn’t Norwegian—he’s Irish. There’s a garrotte wrapped tightly around his throat. And, judging by the matting of the hair on one side, I’d guess he was slammed hard on the anchor that held him on the bottom. There goes my theory of who killed Anniken Kallevik.”
“Theories are fickle,” Richardson said. “The damn things are never as loyal to you as you are to them.”
Chapter 16
Williams pointed a marker at Jennifer Grant’s wedding photograph taped to the whiteboard. “Here’s the thing: Her parents don’t feel David Nicholson caused their daughter’s disappearance, but her brother, Robert, not Nicholson, was the one who went out to California looking for her, following leads up and down the coast for almost a year, putting flyers on poles across LA, all around Silver Lake and even Malibu. And it was Nicholson who, two years after she went missing, severed all ties with the Grants and refused to let them have any contact with their grandson.” Williams quickly sketched what else he and Vertesi had learned from Jennifer’s family: Nicholson had considered himself the victim—deserted by his wife, the mother of their son—and he’d never explained to her family why he blamed them for her flight.
Their legal attempts to gain access to Dylan proved fruitless. The court sided with Nicholson because Jennifer’s parents admitted they had spoken to her after she’d gone, but hadn’t told him. Dylan’s grandparents grew embittered and, ultimately, defeated. They began to question their own opinion of their daughter—maybe she had deserted her son.
“Their problem has always been that phone call they received from Jennifer in California,” Vertesi said. “She sounded so happy. When they pressed her to find out when she was coming home to be with her son, all she said was, ‘I don’t know, not just yet.’ ” Jennifer had never confided in her parents about her difficulties at home, and even they had to admit there appeared to be a strong bond between father and son.
Raw Bone Page 11
