Beautiful Lie the Dead Read Online Free PDF

for her. The old Sue Peters would have bulldozed forward without a backward glance.
    â€œSergeant Li is running the case,” he added. “He’ll fill you two in on everything you need to know.”
    â€œShe 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.

THREE
    S ue 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.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œBob, I can observe much better if I’m in there with you.”
    â€œImpossible.” He didn’t look at her. “The inspector would have my head.”
    â€œOnly if you tell him.”
    â€œOr the family does.”
    â€œWhy 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.”
    â€œSue, you know—”
    â€œI’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