“Will you hurry up and get down here? You’re going to be late for school … again!” Roslyn Hanson walked past the mirror hanging in the hallway and grimaced at her tired-looking face and bedraggled hair. If only she had the money for a trip to the salon. She licked her fingers and rubbed a bit of egg yolk from the side of her mouth before going into the kitchen to get her purse. She waved her arms in the air as she passed Charlie sitting at the table slouched over a bowl of puffed cereal. He looked at her from under the brim of his ball cap.
“What did I tell you about wearing your hat to the table?” she asked, not expecting an answer. “Your sister is going to be the death of me. Can you please make sure she gets out the door? I have to get to work.”
“Sure.”
“You’re a pet.” She blew him a kiss as she opened the door and stepped outside. “Not raining for once,” she said before slamming the door behind her.
Charlie shoved his bowl of cereal across the table. He picked up his cellphone and checked for messages as he got up and headed into the hallway and up the stairs. He stopped at Tiffany’s door and banged on it with his fist. “Hey, you decent?” he yelled.
The door jerked open and Tiffany batted her eyes. “More like indecent.” She turned her back on him and returned to stand in front of the full-length mirror, picking up her eyeliner pencil and continuing to draw it around her eyes.
Charlie crossed the floor and sprawled on her bed. He pulled her sweater out from under him and held it up before tossing it toward the foot of the bed. “Do you own anything besides black clothes? Mom says to make sure you get to school on time today.”
“Yeah, like that’s news.” She finished with the eyeliner and picked up a lipstick. She applied it thickly and stepped back to admire the slash of red on her lips that contrasted like a bloodstain with her blackened eyes and pale powdered skin. She walked over to the bed and picked up her sweater. “I like black clothes,” she said, putting her arm into the sleeve. She looked at him. “How are things going?”
“Fine.”
“You can tell me, Charlie.”
“I just feel bad.”
“I know, but it’s better this way. Devon deserved what he got.”
“It’s weird not having him around, though.”
“I know, but you’ll get used to it.”
Charlie swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Some of the kids in my class think I killed him.”
Tiffany was afraid this was going to happen. She was going to have to be tough enough for both of them. She made her voice sound unconcerned. “They can think whatever they like. They have no proof.”
“Have you talked to Sophie yet?”
“Nah. She’s been impossible to get near. I heard she’s back in school, so I’m going to try to get to her today.”
“Well, she could blow it for all of us.”
Tiffany found herself losing patience. Fighting her brother’s battles was one thing. Having to listen to him whine was something else. “I’ll look after it.” She stared at Charlie again. He was wearing a shirt that said “Just Give ’Er” and his bony arms were sticking out like toothpicks. She thought about what a sad little wanker he’d been his entire life.
“Let’s get moving, then.” She reached down and poked him affectionately in the ribs. “Make Mom’s day and get to school on time.”
“She’ll know we’re up to something if you start behaving.” He grinned at her before his face returned to its regular sullen default.
“Yeah, well, if we get to school early, I can have a smoke before I have to sit through another boring math class. If I’m lucky, the teacher won’t check homework or there’ll be another note home.”
Rouleau met with Gundersund in his office at going on ten o’clock Thursday morning. Gundersund looked tired and preoccupied. “Everything okay?” Rouleau asked.
“Yeah, just trouble sleeping. What have you got?”
“I’ve gone through all the reports and think it’s time to bring in Charlie Hanson and see if we can shake something out of him. I’m going to send Woodhouse over to pick him up from school. He knew Devon better than anyone and he’s clammed up. We need to break through the wall and find out what he knew.”
Gundersund nodded. “You think he has infor-
mation?”
“I’m sure of it. Best friends since grade five and the last one to see Devon at school. I’d bet money he knows what happened to him. I believe this is worth a try.”
“Anyone else we should be putting in the hot seat?”
“Besides Jane Thompson?” Rouleau took a drink of coffee. “Her husband had reason to hate Devon.”
“Yeah, Adam Thompson strikes me as a difficult man — unforgiving with a low tolerance for failure.”
“A man concerned with projecting a good image?”
“I’d say so. From what he said about Jane, her affair with Devon still rankles. He might have wanted to kill the problem. Take some revenge and restore his pride. Replacing his wife with a twenty-something-year-old might not be enough.”
“He also wants to keep Jane away from the kids, so killing Devon and putting suspicion on her could solve another problem.”
“Do you want us to bring him in for questioning?”
“Let’s wait until after Woodhouse interviews Charlie.”
“You really think it’s a good idea to let Woodhouse take the lead on that?” Gundersund looked far from convinced.
“I’d like Woodhouse to have a role.” He’d decided to give Woodhouse more responsibility in the hopes that he’d start playing on the team. Woodhouse was also rude enough to take on a teenager who might respect that kind of approach. Sometimes, a gent-
ler hand didn’t get respect from kids turned off to authority. “I wouldn’t mind if you watched the interview from behind the two-way mirror.” He might be willing to risk Woodhouse running an interview, but he wanted another set of eyes.
“Will do.”
“Stonechild late this morning?”
“She said she had an errand to run but will be in shortly.”
“Good. Heath pulled the tail off Jane Thompson during working hours too. Let Stonechild know.”
“Any reason?”
“The manpower is needed elsewhere and Jane hasn’t done anything out of the ordinary. In fact, the reports on her comings and goings are as exciting as dirt. I couldn’t come up with a good enough reason to keep the tail.”
“She would be on her best behaviour knowing she was being watched.”
“I can’t justify tying up somebody when we don’t have any proof linking her to the murder. If you get me some evidence, now that’s a different story.”
Gundersund left to wait for Woodhouse, and Rouleau stared at the pile of paperwork on his desk. He’d started going through the first file when Vera knocked at the door. He hadn’t seen her since the night of the charity musical.
“Come in, Vera. I wanted to apologize for missing the play the other night. How’d it go?”
“Good. I was sorry you didn’t make it.” She wasn’t smiling and cut off his second apology. “Hilary Eton is in the waiting area by the front desk and asking to speak to you.”
Rouleau checked his watch. Still twenty minutes before his meeting with Heath. “I can see her now.”
“I’ll go get her. I could use the exercise.”
He watched Vera walk away; he wanted to call her back, but didn’t. He wasn’t sure she’d accept that he’d skipped the night out for no reason other than he hated sitting through a play, especially when singing was involved. Frances had known this and gone alone or with a girlfriend if there was something she wanted to see.
Hilary Eton was suddenly standing in the doorway to his office, looking much like a bird that wasn’t sure if it should land or take off. Rouleau got up and ushered her inside, sitting her in the chair normally occupied by Gundersund. She crossed and uncrossed her legs while unbuttoning her coat. She was wearing kid leather gloves, russet red and expensive looking. Her coat was mohair and her black leather boots came above her knees over black leggings.
Rouleau took the second visitor chair next to her, repositioning it so that he was facing her. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I’ve come to beg you to arrest the Thompson woman so we can get on with our lives. I implore you to do the right thing.” Her fingers picked at the fabric of her sweater.
“As the investigating officers told your husband yesterday, we need to have more evidence before we can arrest her. I assure you that we’re working thoroughly and methodically to make a case against Devon’s killer. We’re as eager as you are to bring someone to justice for his murder.” He spoke gent-
ly. “We have to be certain she killed him, but we haven’t reached that point in the investigation yet.”
Hilary let out a sound of anguish. She half rose from the chair. “That woman was responsible for everything … everything. If but for her, Devon would have turned out differently. He wouldn’t … he would …” Her hands waved in the air. “How can you people not see what she’s done?”
Rouleau said quietly, “Can you tell me about Devon? I’d like to hear more about him.”
Hilary focused on him then and the frantic energy left her like air escaping a balloon. She settled back into the chair. “What do you want to know? That Jane Thompson broke and destroyed my loving boy? He was never the same, you know. She should never have been let out of prison.”
“What was he like before the business with Mrs. Thompson?”
Hilary’s face relaxed and she closed her eyes for just a moment. She looked at Rouleau. “He was active and advanced for his age right from the start, and such a good-looking boy. We had a special bond, the two of us. Mitchell was jealous, I think, because he wasn’t part of it and he tried to toughen Devon up. I think he understands now the bond I felt with our son because he has much the same for Sophie. It’s odd isn’t it, Sergeant, how one of our children can stir that feeling in us? And I don’t mean anything perverted, just simply an affinity with them that can’t be explained. Of course, all that disappeared with Devon after he was corrupted. Oh, Devon still had the charm and worked to please me, but he wasn’t the same.”
Rouleau remembered Stonechild saying that she couldn’t get a real read on Devon even after all the interviews. Hilary’s ramblings held a truth that he couldn’t see yet. He waited, letting her know that he was listening, not daring to interrupt. The look in her eyes was as close to raw pain as Rouleau had ever seen, and he wondered if he’d looked the same when he heard that Frances had died.
“I shouldn’t have come. Mitchell won’t be happy if he finds out.” She started to do up her coat, her long fingers fumbling with the buttons, having difficulty putting them through the holes.
“I’m glad that you did. You’ve been under a great deal of stress and understandably want answers.”
“Please forgive me.” She stood quickly. “I need to go.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
“No, you’ve done more than enough already.” She extended a gloved hand and he reached for it. Her eyes held his. “Please let me know as soon as you arrest her. I think I could sleep then.”
Rouleau watched her walk down the hall toward the exit and thought about what she’d told him, uneasy at what she’d revealed about her son. He’d relay the conversation to Gundersund and Stonechild and hopefully they’d cross-reference the information with conversations from other witnesses and make sense of it. He wished he was in a position to take a greater part in the investigation, finding directing from the sidelines a frustration. Necessary to have someone overseeing all the bits and pieces, but not the same as speaking with all the people in the victim’s life. He missed being on the front lines. That was the greatest loss that came with moving up the ladder and accepting a pay increase. That, and the time that he spent on paperwork that he’d never get back.
He returned to his desk and opened the file he’d been going through before Hilary Eton had entered his office. He’d be the unit’s representative at a conference in Toronto on use of force in a week and had a lot of reading ahead of him. He had ten minutes to make some headway before his trip to Heath’s office to explain again why they hadn’t arrested Jane Thompson.
It might have been the fact that Rouleau had given Woodhouse a job to do that didn’t involve door-to-door searches that made him enter Frontenac Secondary School by the front door and wait patiently in the office instead of barging into Charlie Hanson’s classroom and dragging the kid out. He’d conceded to Bennett’s suggestion that it didn’t take two of them to drive Charlie to the station and left him following up on some phone calls.
Charlie shuffled into the office behind the secretary who’d gone to fetch him. Woodhouse was leaning on the counter and turned his head. Kid could have been him at that age. Same awkward looking slouch, hair wild and curly enough to mean he’d never be cool. The black glasses on the kid’s face would add to the “kick me, I’m a goof” look. Woodhouse straightened.
“You’ll be coming with me, son,” he said. He motioned the kid to walk in front of him and they passed by a few giggling girls on their way down the hall to the main doors. Charlie kept his head down.
A group of older kids was standing at the edge of the property smoking, and Woodhouse could almost feel the pain radiating from Charlie as he walked past them.
“May as well sit up front with me. Not like you’re under arrest.”
Woodhouse’s attempt at humour fell as flat as a pancake, but Charlie got into the front seat and did up his belt without comment. He’d brought his school bag and held it in his lap. He’d been in the middle of class and said he’d go home from the station.
Woodhouse eased the car away from the curb, ignoring the rude gestures from the kids that he saw in his rear-view mirror as he pulled away.