the mother, so make sure nothing leaks.”
“Nothing will, unless the woman who found the bikini talks. But the press are circling like vultures.”
After he hung up, Green glanced at his watch. Hannah’s school started at nine o’clock. He still had an hour in which to check out the latest news from the search scene and speak to Lea’s mother before he could intercept his daughter at school. Fortunately, her school was located in Old Ottawa South, a mere five minutes drive from Billings Bridge.
Although the challenge of coordinating the different teams on the case—the Ident unit, the ground and water search teams, K-9—fell to the duty inspector, the investigative aspects were still technically in the hands of the lead investigator, Ron Leclair. The case would not officially become a major crimes case until a body was found and the coroner ruled death to be suspicious. But Leclair was astute enough to recognize the potential for disaster in any misstep on his part and seemed genuinely grateful when Green turned up to check out the situation.
Green realized why once he’d waded through all the media trucks in the Billings Bridge parking lot and caught sight of not only Superintendent Barbara Devine, decked out in a photogenic lime green pantsuit, but also the police chief himself in full dress uniform. They stood before a phalanx of reporters. Lea Kovacev’s plight had caught the imagination of the city. Green swore under his breath. Not only would every Tom, Dick, and Harry flock to the river’s edge in the hope of finding the next clue—the bikini top, perhaps—but Marija Kovacev was going to learn the worst possible news as a chatty, late-breaking news byte on some local TV morning show.
He barely had time to check out the specialty teams and confer with the duty inspector before his fears were confirmed. A cab pulled into the parking lot, and Marija Kovacev leaped out, hurling some money in her wake. She raced wide-eyed through the crowd, accosting everyone in uniform before her eyes settled on Green. He drew her hastily out of earshot of the media.
“We haven’t found her,” he said before she could draw breath. “There’s still hope, but I think you should be prepared.”
She tore free of his grasp. “No! She’s a good swimmer! That bathing suit—it falls off at the first jump.”
“We’re looking everywhere, and we have an ambulance standing by if we need it. But meanwhile, is there someone I can call for you? A family member?”
She was shaking her head vigorously. “No family.”
“A friend then? I know how hard it is to be alone, just waiting for the word.”
“I am not waiting. I look all night. I phone every person who is her friend, I went to her work and I walk on all the streets. Today I will go to her school. I will look through her locker—”
“The police did that.” “But they don’t know what they look for. Names, pictures, poems. Lea’s mind is always going. Imagining, creating. She write little poems—just pretty words about her thoughts— but I know somewhere in them are some...” Marija waved her hand impatiently. “What is the word? Clues? Where she would go, if she has a secret boyfriend...” Her chin quivered. “Maybe your Sergeant Leclair is right. I pray to God that he is right. I was too strict, I keep her too close to me, and she can’t tell me about her new boy. I pray she is away with him.”
Green vaguely registered her new-found conversion to hope and recognized the desperate denial that fuelled it. His mind was caught up in her earlier words about Lea’s creative bent. Of all the school books Lea could have taken to her romantic tryst, she had taken her English notebook, complete with doodles, notes on Shakespeare and poems. That notebook was now awaiting forensic examination by Lyle Cunningham. Lyle would be looking for fingerprints and bodily fluids. It would never in a million years cross his meticulous mind to look for hidden clues in a verse of poetry. Clues to her dreams and plans.
Clues to a secret lover, perhaps?
* * *
Jenna Zukowski drained the dregs of her Tim Hortons doubledouble and tossed the cup onto the back seat just as she turned into the Pleasant Park parking lot. She was still only half awake, seven thirty being an insanely early hour to be arriving at work, but she wanted to catch the school athletic practices to see if there were any likely candidates for her suspects list. Sports had never been her forte; beyond the obligatory high school gym classes and a woman’s self-defence course at university, she’d always given physical exertion a wide berth. She could not grasp the appeal of whacking some stupid ball around a court or field, and the thought of sitting through several hours watching someone else do it held even less appeal. Yet to judge from the hockey madness that had gripped the whole city in the last month of the Stanley Cup playoffs, perfectly reasonable people went nuts over it, and a talented sports superstar could make more in a season than she could ever hope to make in a lifetime of humanitarian service.
She parked the car and headed towards the sports field, where she could see a clump of boys running around the track. They wore thin nylon shorts and sleeveless shirts and kept up a long, steady stride. Even at a distance she could see the sweat soaking through their shirts. Already at this hour, the sun packed some punch, threatening another humid day.
She veered over towards two middle-aged men who were sitting in the bleachers, baseball caps pulled low over their eyes against the sun. One was watching through binoculars and yelling at someone in the group to “pick up your fucking feet!” The other had a clipboard in his hand and a whistle dangling from his mouth. The official coach, she decided. His gaze remained on the track as she approached, but the other man lowered his binoculars and swivelled to watch her. She could see his eyes travel the length of her body before settling on her chest. She felt her cheeks burn. “Moron,” she muttered, instinctively tensing up.
She had formulated an admittedly lame opening question about how the sports students were coping, but the more the man leered, the more tangled her tongue became. When she began climbing the bleacher stairs, the lecher punched the coach lightly on the arm and smiled broadly, showing a crooked row of nicotine-stained teeth.
“Hey Ken, this may be your lucky day.” The coach pulled his eyes from the track and turned to her with a distracted frown. On closer inspection, she saw that he was not much older than she was, perhaps thirty at the most, but years of overeating and inaction had given his flesh a doughy look. In contrast, the older man’s stubby body rippled with muscles, each one proudly defined by the soft lines of his black silk shirt. A bodybuilder, she thought with disgust. The guy gets better all the time.
The coach removed his whistle from his lips. “Can I help you?”
“And if he can’t, maybe I can,” black shirt said.
“Put a sock in it, Vic.” The coach rolled his eyes. “Don’t mind him.”
“I’m looking for the gym teacher,” Jenna said, suddenly hoping neither of them fit the bill.
“Your lucky day too, sweetheart,” Vic said. “You found him.”
“One of them, at least,” the coach amended. “I’m Ken Taylor.”
Jenna introduced herself, and before she could get out the first word of her speech, Vic folded her hand into a hearty grip. His thumb stroked her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Jenna Zukowski. Social worker, eh? Don’t mind me saying so, but you hardly look old enough to be out of high school.”
She felt the red extend from her toes to the roots of her hair. She yanked her hand free. Ken smiled at her sympathetically. “Ignore him. You have something to discuss with me?”
“Yes, but...well...” She struggled to untangle her tongue. “It’s about Lea Kovacev.”
“Oh, is there news?”
“No. At least not that I know of. But I’m concerned about her friends and how they’re coping, whether they need support...” She trailed off.
“As far as I know, all her friends have been taken care of. Guidance made a big push yesterday to touch base with them.”
“Yes,