command and rarely would a Major Crimes detective be tied up in a MisPers investigation unless something sinister was suspected. But all was quiet on the second floor, and this case felt wrong. Staff Sergeant Brian Sullivan, head of Major Crimes, was out on indefinite sick leave and his acting replacement, seconded from Patrol, was over his head trying to keep track of the dozens of active cases currently on the books, let alone managing to give the detectives any useful advice.
Detective Sue Peters was currently relegated to entering data in online tracking forms, a mandatory but tedious clerical job that would not provide her with the confidence and skill to return to full duties. She had come a long way physically in her recovery from a near-fatal beating two years earlier, but the fuchsia jacket and the hearty laugh were the first signs that her spirit was returning as well. She was not yet well enough to pass her Use of Force test that would allow her back on full active duty, but a simple, behind-the-scenes assignment supporting Bob Gibbs might be the perfect nudge.
He called them both into his office, watching her try to conceal her stiffness as she hovered in the doorway. Li struggled to rise and offer her the only chair, but she dismissed the offer and stood warily just inside the door. Green had not missed the spasm of alarm that crossed Gibbs’s face as well, and realized its source. Everyone was afraid of being transferred out.
He held up a reassuring hand and explained the case. “Bob, I’d like you to search the missing woman’s room for clues to her whereabouts and explanations for her disappearance. While you’re there, re-interview her parents. Sue can follow up the leads you uncover.”
Peters flashed a grin, lopsided now due to her injuries. “I get to go out on the call, sir?” she asked as if not quite believing her luck.
He looked at her in silence and saw her smile slowly fade. To his surprise, she didn’t argue. “There will be plenty of leads to follow up on the phone,” he said. “Interviews with friends, old boyfriends…”
Despite her obvious disappointment, Green knew even this was a huge step for her. He was aware of the anxiety she was trying to hide. Peters had been alone when she was attacked, making inquiries in a rough bar while her partner was elsewhere on the strip. To ask her to make cold calls to potentially violent men was a risk, but he knew the challenge was crucial for her. The old Sue Peters would have bulldozed forward without a backward glance.
“Sergeant Li is running the case,” he added. “He’ll fill you two in on everything you need to know.”
“She was about to get married, wasn’t she, sir?” Peters asked.
Green and Li nodded in unison. “Reason enough to disappear,” she said with another hearty laugh. This time Green sensed it was forced, and she cast a small, uncertain glance in Gibbs’s direction as she did so.
Sue Peters kept quiet as Bob steered the unmarked Impala cautiously through the narrow residential streets, dodging the piles of snow pushed aside by hasty plows. She was marshalling her arguments for the next battle. Once they’d left Green’s office, she’d managed to persuade Bob to let her ride along in the car.
“I have to get away from these four walls, Bob,” she’d said. “I’ve been staring at computers for so long, I’ve forgotten what a field call feels like. How am I supposed to get back on my feet if I don’t start somewhere?”
She could see him wavering, so she pushed. “I can just sit in the car and observe the neighbourhood, make calls while I wait for you.
It will hardly be different from the station but it will feel different.”
It wasn’t really a fair fight, for Bob Gibbs never could say no to her. Not when she faced him square on and looked up into his brown puppy-dog eyes. She said nothing more while they were driving out to the Kennedy house. She knew he was taking inventory of the neighbourhood and mentally preparing himself for the encounter with the distraught parents. The initial police notes had described them as a “good family”. From a police officer’s perspective that usually meant nothing more than gainful employment and a lack of criminal connections. It said nothing about whether the father drank or the wife beat the kids, as long as nothing had landed on their police database.
The neighbourhood wasn’t rich but had a certain charm if you liked the post-war Leave it to Beaver look—little houses peeking out beneath massive old trees, one-car driveways neatly carved by snowblowers, and handmade Christmas wreaths on the door. Despite being built in the 1950s, the homes were being snapped up by young couples eager to avoid cookie-cutter plastic houses and hour-long commutes from suburbia. Sue wouldn’t be caught dead living here. She wanted acres of land somewhere in the rugged Canadian shield west of the city. Hardwood forests, granite bluffs, a meadow for a horse, and lots of trails for the dogs to roam off-leash. She grinned at the image of shy, self-conscious Gibbsie and her lying in the meadow with the sun beating down on their naked bodies and not a prying eye for miles.
Would she ever be whole enough?
The Kennedy house came upon them unexpectedly, breaking into her daydreams. It was a red and white dollhouse sitting on a corner lot, surrounded by a trim cedar hedge. Cars crammed the single driveway and crowded the street against the snowbanks, making it difficult for Bob to squeeze by. Only once he’d parked up the block and had one foot out the door did she stop him.
“Bob, I can observe much better if I’m in there with you.”
“Impossible.” He didn’t look at her. “The inspector would have my head.”
“Only if you tell him.”
“Or the family does.”
“Why should they? They won’t think anything of it. Two detectives look better than one anyway. One to interview and one to take notes. Looks like we’re taking it seriously.”
“Sue, you know—”
“I’ll be as quiet as a mouse. You know how hard it is to deal with upset families, plan questions and take notes.”
She’d thought that would be incentive enough, but still he shook his head. She changed tactics. “Darling, I need to do this.
I need to feel normal again, start thinking like a police officer again. How am I ever going to recover…?” She grabbed his chin and turned his face to hers. “How am I ever going to be a hundred percent?”
That simple phrase proved the key. She suppressed a small smile of triumph as she followed him up the icy street, trying to disguise the slight drag of her left foot. The family would not want a cripple assigned to their daughter’s search.
The snow on the front walk had been trampled by dozens of boots and as soon as Bob rang the doorbell, the door was flung open. A look of expectation followed by surprise raced across the face of the man who opened it. The loud buzz of voices could be heard inside.
“Mr. Kennedy? I’m Detective Gibbs of the Ottawa Police.”
The man didn’t answer. His jaw dropped and he stepped back to yell into the house. “Reg, it’s the cops!”
A roly-poly sparkplug of a man rushed up. He had a crooked nose, curly silver hair and that Irish leprechaun face Sue had seen in dozens of small Ottawa Valley towns. Minus the jaunty grin and the twinkle in the eye. This man’s eyes were bloodshot, and his skin was bruised
