nothing suspicious, they cautiously climbed out and carefully examined the abandoned car, its engine still running.
“Hey,” said Larose, “this thing belongs to the Ottawa Police Department. What the hell is going on?”
A moment later two more cruisers, sirens blaring, lights flashing, spilled into the laneway.
4:12 AM • DAY ONE
Aside from two men parked in a cruiser at the end of the laneway, they were all gathered in the Henry garage, which had been hurriedly converted, into a temporary command post. Charron had used his cell to make several calls to his office in Hull and to Montreal. The missing girl’s mother had been tracked down in Toronto and hoped to catch the first flight to Ottawa. Thus far no one had been able to locate Therese Gratton’s only relative, a son living in Windsor.
For several minutes they sat in silence, except for Grant, who grimly paced back and forth across the garage entrance, staring at the black outline of his home a few metres away. A rooster began to crow from the small chicken coop at the rear of the garage, then another. Golden Pencilled Hamburgs, colourful, exotic chickens raised from eggs by Lee. It would soon be dawn.
Charron glanced at his watch then turned to look closely at Grant who had stopped his pacing for a moment and stood slumped against the garage doorframe. Earlier, he had raged at the superintendent. “Why the hell aren’t you out looking for my daughter? Why are we just sitting around?”
Charron gently explained that he’d called Montreal for assistance. Two detectives, including the province’s leading criminal investigator were already on their way and he didn’t want his men trampling around in the dark, destroying God knows what evidence. Bell Telephone was already repairing the phone-line that had been cut at the end of the laneway and someone was on his way from Hull to put a tap on Grant’s phone. An APB had been issued with the descriptions of both his daughter and Madame Gratton to all police forces in Quebec. Both the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police had been notified along with Ottawa City police.
Stepping forward, Charron touched Grant lightly on the shoulder.
“It’s almost 4:30,” he said kindly, “can I have one of my men get you a coffee or anything?”
Grant shook his head and said grimly, “Look, sorry for the blowup, but are you certain there isn’t something else we could be doing? I just can’t stand this sitting around waiting. It doesn’t make any sense when...”
“But we aren’t just sitting around,” insisted Charron. “Our people will be here very soon from Montreal. There’s only one highway in and out of here, as you know, and we’ve got roadblocks up everywhere. Until we get some daylight, there isn’t much else we can do.” He paused, then turned to look directly at Jake sprawled on the floor, his head propped on a feedbag. “And as for the Ottawa Police, they have no business up here at all in any kind of official capacity.”
There was no response from Jake whose mind was on something else.
Constable Stapley had managed to round up a few light bulbs, but Charron had instructed that nothing in the house was to be touched until the special investigators arrived from Montreal.
Shortly after his arrival, the superintendent, alone, careful not to disturb anything, had gone from room to room with a flashlight to insure there was no obvious evidence, or so he told Grant. What he really wanted to be certain of was that a body, or perhaps even two, had not been left sprawled inside, but he found nothing amiss other than the broken lights, the gruesome desk lamp and the licence plate. There was not the slightest sign of a struggle.
He spent a long time staring at the licence plate still lying on the desk in the eerie light.
“Damn,” he whispered into the shadows, “has it come to this?”
4:33 AM • DAY ONE
It was Jake who found Lee’s hair. His nerves were screaming at him; he found the waiting intolerable, but there was something else, something poking around at the edges of his consciousness. What had he seen during his wild ride down the laneway? A movement of some kind. Where? Puzzled, he slouched to his feet and, ignoring Charron’s glare and admonition not to touch anything, borrowed Stapley’s flashlight and stepped outside.
The rain had stopped, a few stars were out, and to the east across the Gatineau River, a faint glow indicated the roosters’ instincts were correct. Dawn was just on the other side of the mountain.
Jake began to explore the patio, casting the cone of light from side to side. Something drew him to Grant’s car, the empty socket of its smashed headlight faintly visible in the growing light. He opened the driver’s side door and augmenting the overhead light with his flash, explored first the front seat and floor then the back. Nothing. Slowly he withdrew and closed the door. His heart was pounding. What was it? And then the veil dissolved. He saw it clearly. Something moving beside him on the seat. Running around to the passenger side, he threw open the door.
He didn’t need the flashlight to see it. There it was, almost under the seat, tight against the gearshift hump where it had fallen during his wild ride down the laneway. A clump of blonde hair, maybe five inches long, tightly tied with a blue ribbon. Lee’s.
* * *
The pregnancy had been a delightful surprise and the cause of considerable concern. Only three months into their marriage, Carol had suffered a traumatic miscarriage late in the second trimester, and her doctor was not at all sure if she could become pregnant again, let alone carry a child to term. Fortunately the doctor’s concerns were unfounded. Aside from the fact the birth had to be induced ten days late, the pregnancy had been absolutely normal. Lee could not have been a happier, more lovable child.
Her great-great paternal grandfather had been a Danish sea captain from whom she had inherited, as had all his descendants, the blonde hair and blue eyes which once prompted someone to remark that Henry family reunions, with their ever-increasing swarms of children swooping about, were beginning to look a lot like gatherings of little Viking munchkins!
The fact she was an only child occasionally concerned both Grant and Carol. They discussed adoption several times, but while neither would ever admit it, even to themselves, they sensed their own relationship was too fragile to risk another ingredient. If Lee missed the company of siblings, she gave no indication of it.
Carol was determined Lee was going to be raised, not as she had been, like one of a large brood of cute, rough and tumble puppies, but by the book. Any book it seemed, so long as it dealt with child development or psychology. From Spock to Burton-White, Lee was guinea pig to it all, and none of it appeared to make the slightest difference. No matter what school of psychology Carol was avidly devoted to that particular month, Lee just kept doing what she had done since birth, what just seemed to come naturally: Smiling, laughing, singing, exploring and bouncing about.
Their home movies and videos were an endless montage of Lee mugging for the camera, Lee opening Christmas presents with big smiles, Lee singing at the school concert, Lee playing with Niki, Lee coming up laughing after taking a tumble on her new bike. The only variant was one shot which they used to play over and over, to great guffaws every time, of Lee, aged about five, carefully feeding her newly acquired chickens. To shouts of “watch this, watch this,” every time they screened it, one of the roosters, not much bigger than Grant’s fist, marched boldly up to Lee’s leg, and without warning, landed a vigorous peck. You could see Lee’s look of astonishment, only inches
