Summer reading: A web of secrets infuses WHO LIES IN WAIT

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Welcome to the Ottawa Citizen’s summer reading file, where we’ll feature new work by a local author once a week.

Brenda Chapman is an Ottawa crime-fiction author with 25 published novels. She has written the lauded Stonechild and Rouleau police procedural series, the Anna Sweet mystery novellas, and the Jennifer Bannon mysteries for middle grade. Her work has been shortlisted for several awards including five Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence. Who Lies in Wait is the fourth book in the Hunter and Tate mystery series.

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As the story opens one cold January evening, the body of a young woman is discovered in the woods near Shirley’s Bay on the outskirts of Ottawa. Even after her identity is uncovered, her past and affiliations remain shrouded in mystery. Was she honestly in love with a wealthy man twice her age who planned to marry her, or was she a con artist running a Romeo scan?

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Detective Liam Hunter stepped out of his car onto the snowy country road and shivered at the thought of the misery waiting for him out of sight somewhere past the black ridge of trees. He took a moment to lean his head back and breathe, attempting to detach himself from what was to come but unable to rid himself of the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach that had worked its way into his chest. A quarter moon glowed milky white against the dark sky, the light hazy through the gathering clouds, their bellies low and swollen with moisture. A sharp blast of wind blew shards of ice against his face, and he hunched into himself, attempting to find warmth where there was none.

This is a desolate place to die.

The thought depressed him. He hoped that when his time came he’d be tucked up in a warm bed having just drunk a shot of whiskey, not in a location as isolated and frigid as this. Whoever was lying dead in these woods had not been given a choice.

His partner, Julie Quade, was already striding toward the entrance to the trail cordoned off with bright yellow police tape, her matching neon vest a bright smudge against the trees. She stopped and aimed the beam of her flashlight down the path, waiting for Liam to join her.

“I could have done without this tonight,” she said when he moved alongside. She yanked the hood of her parka over her springy mass of black hair with a gloved hand and tucked her chin into the scarf wrapped around her neck. “Really could have done without this.”

“You had plans?”

She snorted. “Needed to call my ex to pick up the kids, and he gave me an earful as per usual. The three of us had just settled in with a movie and popcorn, then the scramble to collect all their stuff and get them out the door. I wonder sometimes if they’ll ever forgive me for this hellish, workaholic life. Damn, it’s cold.”

He knew she didn’t expect him to comment. Already she’d turned and was crunching through the snow ahead of him toward the sound of activity deeper into the woods. “Did dispatch tell you anything about the victim?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard above the gusty wind.

“No, just that a guy’s dog led him to the body. Apparently, he drives here daily to exercise the hound. I don’t know how we’d find half the bodies we do without dogs off-leash.”

A hundred metres into the woods, Liam heard the voices of officers up ahead. He rounded a corner in the path and saw the sharp glow of lights set up to illuminate the site. The track had widened into a small glade, and the body lay at the farthest corner next to a border of sumac bushes. Coroner Brigette Green looked up at him and Quade as they approached from where she crouched in the snow.

“It’s okay,” she said, motioning them closer. “We’ve already done a search of this part of the terrain. Jane Doe was found deeper into that bit of brush just over there, but we moved her so I could undertake an examination once photography was completed.”

I don’t know how we’d find half the bodies we do without dogs off-leash.

“You made it here fast,” Quade said, squatting down next to her. “What have we got then?”

“A woman I estimate to be in her late twenties to early thirties. She hasn’t been dead long.”

“So, time of death…?”

“Now, Detective Quade, when have you known me to give you that at the scene?”

“Hope springs eternal.”

Green’s smile lasted as long as it took for her gaze to travel from Quade to the body. Her gloved fingertips gently brushed the woman’s cheek. “Strangled, I’d say within the last several hours from the state of bruising on her neck, if I were forced to guess. The snowfall a few hours ago was light, but it coated her in a layer that also filled in some of the footprints. The wind gusts haven’t helped.” Green’s voice was matter-of-fact, but Liam had worked with her long enough to know that the detachment was surface-deep. “I can’t ascertain yet if she was raped, although her clothes are all accounted for. After a cursory inspection I can tell you that she’s wearing lacy lilac underwear, but that might mean nothing.”

“She could have been meeting someone. Women often wear flimsy undergarments for an assignation. I used to before I got married.” Quade’s voice was wistful.

“She’s not wearing a wedding or engagement ring; however, she might simply enjoy the feel of lace.” Green stood and stretched out her back.

“You need thermal undies on a night like tonight. Any sane woman in Ottawa knows that,” Quade said.

Liam shuffled closer, and Green bent to pull back the woman’s collar with gloved fingers to show the angry, purplish marks on her neck.

“Has she got any ID?” he asked, his eyes moving to encompass her length.

She lay on her back, short, layered hair framing a narrow face. Crystals of ice clung to her eyelashes and strands of hair that were likely a lighter shade of blond when dry. Some of the snow had been removed from her clothes as a result of Green’s examination. An unbuttoned, grey wool coat revealed a green sweater and black pants tucked into knee-high leather boots. Her clothes were well cut, expensive.

His eyes travelled back to her face. He wondered what colour her eyes were and whether her face had lit up when she smiled. He took a step back and swept his gaze past the brightened section of the glade into the darkness of the trees. This place was within city limits but out of the way. Isolated, except for dog walkers and cross-country skiers, but they tended to stay on the main trail that led to the river bay. The choice of location to conceal the body leaned toward a local who knew the area. It was a more popular spot in the summer and fall, when paddle boarders and other watercraft set out from the short stretch of beach nearby.

“No ID or purse.” Green bestowed a half-smile upon him. “You’ll have work to do figuring out who she is, Hunter, but I imagine someone will be missing her. By the quality of her clothing and haircut, she certainly wasn’t homeless. I believe she was killed in a different location and moved here, but the autopsy will confirm my assumption.”

“Someone could easily have driven into the lot and carried her to this spot. It’s isolated enough.”

“I agree. She’s not an overly large person.”

“Jewellery?”

“None. There’s a dove tattoo on her left wrist.” Green turned over the woman’s arm for them to see.

Quade stood. “That should be helpful. I’ll check with HQ to see if anyone has reported her missing and get them to be on the lookout if nothing yet. I’ll also have a unit canvass the neighbourhoods, although there’s none close by. Not near enough to have seen or heard anything, anyway.”

Liam nodded. They’d decided on the way over that she’d take the lead. He offered to brief their staff sergeant, Kurt Auger, but she shook her head. “You don’t need to protect me from him,” she said. “I can handle myself.”

“I was thinking of protecting him from you.” Liam grinned, and her face relaxed.

She’d been grumpy since giving up the acting position to Auger, who’d wrangled the job out from under her. Auger had officially become their boss a month earlier, and the entire team teetered on the edge of revolt, waiting for him to begin making changes. Their loyalty to Quade ran deep.

“Keep your enemies closer.” The determined look on Quade’s face sent a ripple up Liam’s spine that had nothing to do with the frosty night and the plunging temperature. He couldn’t shake the feeling that their unit was headed for trouble. He wanted to counsel her to be patient, but she’d already yanked her phone out of a pocket and stomped toward the edge of the tree line.

“I’ll have the body moved now,” Green said and waited for Liam to signal his assent. “The autopsy will be tomorrow morning if I can fit it into the schedule. This week for certain.”

“I’ll let Quade know.”

Green nodded, one sharp movement of her head. “This could end badly,” she said. Her gaze moved past him to focus on Quade. “It never should have happened.”

He knew she wasn’t speaking about the dead woman but pretended he’d misunderstood. “Hopefully, we’ll figure out her name by morning. One of us will sit in on the autopsy.”

Excerpted from Who Lies in Wait, 2025.

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What Brenda Chapman is reading:

I just finished reading Anne Michaels novel Held, a beautiful book to be savoured. I’ve had three other books on the go. A friend returned my copy of Giles Blunt’s Blackfly Season and I’m giving it a reread because I enjoyed it so much the first time. I’m also part way through John Delacourt’s The Black State, and T.J. Oliver’s first offering, A Ritual of Shallow Seeds, both written by talented Ottawa authors who’ve become friends.