“Not at all, Bob,” he said. “I want you to get back onto the Halifax police with these new details about the Jane Doe, and tell them it’s now a priority one homicide case.”
Far to the south, fog banked up over the ocean, but overhead the sky was blue and sunlight dazzled the whitecaps in Halifax Harbour. Sergeant Kate McGrath stood at the window of her Dartmouth condo, sipping her coffee and staring out over the shipyard into the harbour beyond. From her earliest childhood memory, the ocean always had the power to awe her. Chunks of pack ice still bobbed in the distance, but in the shelter of the inner harbour, the first brave sailboats were already dancing on the brisk spring breeze.
She finished her coffee, changed into her spandex running suit, and pulled her Gore-tex jacket on top. Even though it was sunny, she knew the wind and salt spray of the ferry ride would chill her to the bone before she was halfway across.
The two-kilometre run from her condo to the ferry terminal was barely enough to get her endorphins flowing, but when she stepped aboard and headed for her favourite spot at the upper bow, a sense of peace spread through her. The engine thrummed, the waves slapped against the hull, and in front of her, the City of Halifax rose steeply in a jumble of brick buildings and narrow streets towards the historic stone citadel at its crown.
She’d been right to move here after Sean’s death. Not back to the craggy beauty of the Newfoundland coast where she’d been raised, but to this gentler, lusher landscape, where pain and privation weren’t etched so deeply into the soul. Sean had been blasted through the front door of a farmhouse by a shotgun during a routine domestic dispute call, ending her marriage barely a year after their honeymoon. The waterfront condo had cost her almost all his insurance settlement from the Truro Police, but it had been worth it. After twelve years here, the pain of his death had been worn smooth and soft.
When the ferry docked on the Halifax side, she began the serious leg of her run, almost straight up the hillside from the boardwalk to the base of the citadel, where the sleek new headquarters of the Halifax Regional Police sprawled over an entire city block. She was always one of the first to arrive for her shift, which gave her plenty of time to shower, change and grab a snack before afternoon parade.
Today she had to fight a fierce wind as she ran up Duke Street, so that she was gasping for breath by the time she reached the station. She refused to think it might be age. Thirty-seven was supposed to be the peak of womanhood, not the early stages of decrepitude. She took a long, hot shower, grateful to be alone, and changed into her professional attire. She kept a modest wardrobe of pantsuits and blouses at the station. Simple to clean but presentable if the media or the brass showed up. Only the colours varied.
This time she selected a navy suit with a pale blue blouse to match her eyes and complement her cropped silver hair. She was feeling good. The ferry ride in the spring sunshine had been magical, and she was just returning after two days off. She’d never minded her prematurely silver hair, which lent an edge of experience when she was dealing with criminals and colleagues alike. She was an outport girl from a Newfoundland fishing cove who’d grown up in a household of salty men, and she thought women needed all the edge they could get.
After she’d finished dressing, she raked her fingers through her damp hair and headed upstairs to General Investigations. She had a few minutes before her meeting with the day shift sergeant, so she flipped on her computer to check her email. After two days away from her desk, she had dozens of messages. Incident reports, follow-up reports, bulletins, requests and notifications of all kinds. Some were general distribution, others personal.
She scanned the names and subject lines for messages of high priority or interest. Two messages from the Ottawa Police caught her eye. The first was a general distribution missing persons inquiry about a Jane Doe, and contained a photo and description. The second was directed to Criminal Investigations and was marked priority one pertaining to a homicide investigation. It included a more detailed description of the victim along with a series of autopsy head shots taken from different angles.
McGrath studied the frontal head shot thoughtfully. The eyes were half shut and the mouth gaped open, making it difficult to picture what the living woman would have looked like. Yet something in the deep set eyes and round face touched a memory. She clicked on the profile shot and looked at the slightly upturned nose and the broad forehead. She frowned at the elusive memory. How many women looked like that? It was an ordinary Celtic face, like so many on the streets of Maritime towns.
The day shift sergeant was heading towards her, impatient to hand over control. She gestured to the photos on her screen. “Has there been any action on this Ottawa request yet?”
He glanced at the screen and nodded. “It’s part of uniform parade. The photos are being circulated to patrols, and they’re supposed to ask around and keep their ear to the ground. We also passed it on to the RCMP to cover the rural areas. No one’s had any missing persons reports that match. The Deputy Chief is thinking of making an appeal to the public, broadcast her photo and description.”
McGrath hesitated. Her backlog of work still beckoned, but if her instincts were correct, this was part of a once-in-a-lifetime case that had never been solved. “Before he does, I want to check something,” she said. “Let me requisition a file from archives, and then I’ll be right with you.”
Even with a rush on it, the file took several hours to arrive, giving her time to make a dent in her backlog. She watched as the boxes were unloaded onto the floor by her desk—stacks of statements, reports, warrants and futile leads, all neatly catalogued as she had left them ten years ago in the hope that someday she’d have a reason to come back to them. A new lead, a belated recollection or pang of conscience.
The memories of the case came back in a rush as she flipped through the pages, scanning the contents. Finally, she came to the photos. Before CDs and digital cameras, everything had been retained on colour Polaroids. There were dozens of photos of the crime scene, the autopsy, and the witnesses—at least those who were still in the bar by the time the first squad car reached the scene.
McGrath was looking for a single photo of a woman standing arm in arm with a young soldier, and she finally found it near the bottom of the pile. The woman was looking straight into the camera with her head cocked mischievously to the side and a broad smile lighting her face. The young man was sombre, his gaze fixed with purpose as if he knew the heavy responsibility that lay ahead. His features were tense, but at least they were intact, McGrath thought, which was more than could be said for the rest of his photos.
McGrath picked up the frontal photo from Ottawa and held the two photos side by side. The face of the woman in the earlier photo was younger and fuller, but ten years and a hard life would explain that. The particulars fit. Five-foot-seven, blonde hair, blue eyes. The estimated age fit. Even the last detail, the evidence of an earlier pregnancy, fit too.
She packed the files back into their boxes, picked up the two photos and went into her staff sergeant’s office. She laid the photos on his desk.
“What do you think? Could they be the same woman?”
He turned the earlier photo over to read the back, and his eyebrows shot up. “The Daniel Oliver case?”
“What do you think?”
He shrugged. “Anything’s possible. I can’t see it myself, but you were closer to the case. You’re thinking this is the girlfriend?”
“Patricia Ross. The specs fit.”
“Yeah, her and half of Nova Scotia’s female population. We’re thinking of releasing a request to the media.”
McGrath thought fast. The staff sergeant was a fair, experienced officer, but he always aimed for the most efficient route from A to B, and he rarely worried about the emotional fall-out. In the Daniel Oliver case, it was the emotional fallout that haunted her most.
“Can you hold off for twenty-four