There was something sad about the room. Almost like it never had a chance to become what it was supposed to have been. The room was modest in its simplicity, but the colours and decor indicated that, perhaps, there had been other plans for the space at one time. The walls were bare, but I could see faint outlines of where things had hung. Such embellishments would not be in keeping with the current vocation, I guessed.
I imagined Adele and Ellie picking out furniture and fabrics, knick-knacks and decorations; Ellie wanting a room for a princess and Adele wanting to give that to her; the excitement that would have gone into making it absolutely perfect. I smiled as I remembered doing something similar with my own mother. It wasn’t princesses, it was panda bears. And it was wonderful.
Ellie sat on the edge of a double bed that looked hastily made for our benefit. I moved to the window seat. Jeffers stood by the dressing table.
“You’re sure you’re comfortable talking to us without your father here?” Jeffers asked. He was covering his bases. There is no law stating that a minor needs to have a parent present when speaking with police, but they do need to be given the choice.
Ellie nodded.
“I know it was a terrible shock for you to have discovered Mr. Macie the way you did.” Ellie nodded again.
“How are you doing now?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes I have a hard time sleeping. I see him when I close my eyes.”
“Of course,” Jeffers said. “That’s completely natural. But it will get better. You know we have a program downtown if you ever want to talk to someone.”
“I’m okay.”
“Okay,” Jeffers said with a kind smile. “Ellie, we often like to follow up with witnesses after something like this. We find that sometimes the shock of what was seen can cause someone to forget certain details and that, often, these things can be recalled over time. Do you mind if we go over what you remember from that morning?”
“Sure.”
“Good.” Jeffers took out his notebook and flipped through the pages. “Now, Ellie, you said you came to the school early to study for a test …”
Ellie’s eyes looked to me.
“You were there to see Mr. Macie, weren’t you?” I asked. Her eyes lowered. “It’s all right, Ellie. You can tell us. You’re not in any trouble.”
“I didn’t mean to lie,” she said. “My dad was there and if he knew …”
“He’s not here now,” Jeffers said gently. “Why don’t you tell us what happened.”
Ellie got up and closed her bedroom door, then looked to the window to make sure it was closed. She didn’t speak again until she was back on the bed.
“I don’t know what Ms. James has told you,” she said. Her eyes were averted but she was clearly speaking to Jeffers.
“I know you were receiving some private coaching from Mr. Macie,” Jeffers said.
He did not explain that he also knew her father disapproved and had threatened Al if he didn’t end the arrangement. He was likely waiting to see if she’d offer this information on her own. Even if it meant implicating him in Macie’s death. He didn’t have to wait long.
Chapter 20
Ellie explained how she came to take Al Macie’s course off the record and how that had led to the private sessions. She included her father’s objections and her brother’s tattling and finally got to the meeting that occurred between Armin and Macie the day before he died.
“My father was furious when he found out I hadn’t dropped the class like I’d promised,” she said.
“And how did he find out?” I asked.
“Mr. Macie and I always met in the morning. One or two times a week. Before classes started. My brother came to school a little earlier than usual one day and …”
“Saw you?”
“The door was open and he just happened by. He wasn’t spying on me or anything. It wasn’t like that.”
I didn’t believe that for a second.
“Did he interrupt the session?” Jeffers asked.
“No. But he waited for me at my locker and told me he’d seen us. Said I’d brought shame to our family. That I’d acted against the teachings of the church. Said he was going to tell Da. I begged him not to. I told him I’d end it. I promised, but.” She shook her head. “My father came to the school during lunch. He confronted Mr. Macie. I’d never seen him so angry.”
“You were there?” I asked.
“Mr. Macie had already gone against my father’s wishes by continuing to coach me in secret. I knew Leland was going to tell. And I knew it would only be a matter of time before my father flipped out. But I didn’t think it would be so soon. I went to his office to warn him.”
“You heard their conversation?” Jeffers asked.
“Not all of it. When I got there, Mr. Macie was trying to reason with my dad, but he wasn’t having any of it. He kept going on about sin, and deceit, and about how what Mr. Macie was doing was inappropriate and that he was going to tell Mr. Harvey if he didn’t stop seeing me.”
“What did Mr. Macie say to that?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean ‘nothing’?” I asked.
“I expected him to fight for me. He was always saying how talented I was. How I had something special. How I should never give up on my dream. That I should stand by what I believe in and what I want and not to let anything stand in my way.” Jeffers and I shared a look. “But he didn’t say any of that. He just gave in. Assured my father there would be no more coaching and that I would no longer be permitted to take his class.” There was a fire behind her eyes.
“What happened then?” Jeffers asked.
“My dad left.”
“And you?”
“I was so hurt and angry, you know? I couldn’t believe Mr. Macie had just given up like that. I mean, who cares if my dad told Mr. Harvey?”
Ellie clearly had no idea what implications came with an accusation of inappropriate behaviour and neither Jeffers nor I jumped to fill her in.
“Did you speak with Mr. Macie?” I asked.
She nodded. “I told him I’d overheard and I begged him to change his mind. He just kept telling me how sorry he was but there was nothing more he could do. But it didn’t make any sense. I said he was …”
“It’s okay, Ellie, go on,” I urged.
“I’m afraid I said some not very nice things. I was so upset. I didn’t mean them, really. I was so … I don’t know … I felt like I’d lost everything that mattered. Again.”
“Do you mean your mom?” I asked, carefully.
Ellie nodded, her eyes lowered. Jeffers raised his index finger to me in an appeal to wait before broaching the subject of Adele any further.
“Ellie, what happened the next morning? You went to the school early. You didn’t have a coaching session and you weren’t studying for a test, so why?” Jeffers asked.
“I wanted to apologize for the awful things I’d said. And I figured out a way Mr. Macie could keep coaching me without anybody finding out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Leland always comes home for lunch. Always. He has chores he has to do.”
“So that’s why you told Mr. Leduc your sessions have to be during lunch?” I asked.
“There was always a risk of Leland being at the school in the morning but never at lunch. I thought Mr. Macie would be thrilled that we could keep working together. At least up to my audition. I mean, I knew I’d have to give up the class but as long as I could keep moving forward with the audition … I wasn’t giving up. Just like Mr. Macie told me. I thought he’d be proud of me. I thought he’d be happy. But he just kept repeating everything he had said the day before. He wouldn’t even give it a chance.”
“Wait a minute. You spoke with Mr. Macie that morning? He was alive?” Jeffers asked.
“Y-es.”
“Ellie, why didn’t you say something before?” I asked, trying to keep the urgency in my voice from scaring her off.
�
�If my dad found out I went to see him, I …”
Jeffers brought his hands to his face and let out a long exhale. “Okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” The first was to himself. The second was to the imaginary powers that be. There’d been a shift in the feel of the room. The energy swirling, picking up speed.
“Ellie, when was this? What time, exactly?” He asked, fighting to keep his voice calm.
“Exactly? I don’t know exactly. I got there around six. It’s only a short walk to the school.”
Jeffers nodded and took out his notebook.
“And how long were you with Macie? Mr. Macie?”
“Not long. It was like he didn’t want to talk to me at all. He wouldn’t even let me in the office.”
“Five minutes? Ten?”
“I’m … not … sure …”
“Think!”
“Jeffers,” I warned. “It’s fine, Ellie. Whatever you can remember.”
“Maybe ten? If that.”
“Great,” I said, smiling. Jeffers scribbled.
“Ellie,” he said, still writing. “I need you to think very carefully now.” She nodded. “Did you see anyone else at the school?”
“No.”
“Anyone at all? This is very important.” She shook her head. “Damn.”
“Ellie, can I ask how you knew Mr. Macie would be at the school that early?” I asked.
“He told me. Well, not just me, the class.”
“Did Mr. Macie often share personal details like that?”
“Yeah. We had a thing called a weekly check-in where we had a chance to talk about how we were feeling or if anything was bothering us or whatever.”
“I see,” I said, thinking how I would have absolutely hated if it had been in practice when I was in school. “And how did you get in?” Given that security was tight during regular hours, I could only imagine getting into the school at that time of the morning would require an enchanted key and a magic spell.
“The janitor’s door,” Ellie said, matter-of-factly. “The janitors get there super early and they always leave it open.”
I glanced at Jeffers, who made a note.
“You told your father you were meeting a friend to study for a test, but isn’t six kind of early? He didn’t find that odd?”
“Ms. James, we all have chores in the morning. Mine is to make breakfast and do the washing up. I slipped out early, when they were all outside. I knew Mr. Macie would be at the school and I wanted to be sure to talk with him as soon as possible. After he told me there was no way he could continue coaching me, I left. I came home. I did the breakfast and the dishes. No one even knew I’d been gone.”
“But …”
“I was so upset and just wanted to be alone. So I told my dad I was meeting a friend to study for a test and I went back to the school early.”
“And that’s when you found Mr. Macie’s body?” Jeffers asked.
Ellie nodded.
“Can you remind me,” Jeffers said, flipping through his notes, “did you just happen to walk by the studio? Or were you heading there for a specific reason …?”
“Some of my stuff was there.”
“And what time was this?” Jeffers asked.
“I don’t know. We usually finish breakfast around seven, so it must have been a little after that.”
The timeline checked out with what we already knew.
Jeffers got up from where he was leaning against the dressing table and began to pace. “You’re sure, you’re absolutely positive you didn’t see anyone else at the school?”
“I—”
“What’s going on?” a voice said from the doorway. Leland stood there watching us. Jeffers and I had been so focused on Ellie, neither one of us had heard him open the door.
“It’s all right, Lee,” Ellie said. “They just had a few more questions.”
“Should you be talking to her without Da here?” he asked Jeffers.
“I can assure you, we’re all well within our rights.” Jeffers said. “As a matter of fact, we’d love to have a word with you too, if you have a moment.”
“I got nothing to say.”
“You may think you don’t know anything that will help, but you might be surprised.”
Leland looked to Ellie. She met his gaze and held it, almost defiantly, before looking away.
“I’ll be in the barn,” he said and left the room.
“I’m sorry about him,” Ellie said. “He’s very … protective. Ever since our mother died.”
“Is this her?” I asked, indicating the photo on the dresser. Ellie nodded. “She’s beautiful. You look just like her.”
She smiled. “I have my dad’s nose though.”
“The best features of both.”
“Ellie, where did you say Leland was that morning?”
“Where he always is. In the orchard.”
Jeffers muttered under his breath and scribbled something in his book.
“Actually, no,” Ellie said. “Maybe he was in the barn. Or the cellar. I don’t know. I just remembered Corney complaining at breakfast about having to do all the work himself because Lee took off somewhere.”
Chapter 21
“Where did you go on the morning Mr. Macie was killed?” Jeffers asked, entering the barn where Leland was waiting, as promised. There was no acknowledgment from the teen, and Jeffers repeated his question, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of scraping metal.
Leland balanced on a wobbly stool in front of an old wooden table that served as a workbench. A block of wood was secured to the table by a couple of clamps and a sharpening stone sat on the block, kept in place by a fence of nails. Pruners, shears, shovels, and blades of various kinds sat in neat little rows like well-behaved children with their hands in the air and “pick me” on their faces. He looked up at us through safety goggles. “I heard you the first time,” he said, making no move to stop what he was doing.
Jeffers bristled at the affront. I put my hand gently on his arm and gave a warning look to be patient. Although I shook my head at the audacity of this fifteen-year-old boy, I knew exactly what Leland was doing. The game he was playing. The power he thought he had. I knew because I had been the same at his age. Putting on a tough exterior. Acting the bully or adopting attitude because of the sense of control it gave. I hadn’t been able to control my grief or circumstances, so I got power in other ways. I looked at Leland’s strong arms and broad shoulders hunched over the sharpening stone. There was a grimace on his face and a tightness in his jaw, and although his eyes were obscured by the goggles, I was sure they were darkened by the shadow of pain. For all his brawn and bravado, Leland was just a little boy who’d lost his mother.
He passed the blade over the stone one more time before putting it alongside its kin, then lifted the goggles onto his head and took a rag from his back pocket. He looked at us while he wiped his hands. I stared at the rag. It was grimy from use, but there was no mistaking the colour.
My eyes did a quick scan of the barn’s interior and came to rest on a package of identical, clean rags tucked away on a shelf. The blue was so vibrant against the weathered brown of the barn’s walls it made me wonder how my eye had not been immediately drawn there when we’d entered.
“I was in the orchard.”
“Ellie said you weren’t,” Jeffers said. “She told us your brother had complained about having to do all the chores himself.”
“Her name is Elsbeth,” he said gruffly. “And Corney complains about everything.”
I wondered if there was something behind the fact that it was only Ellie’s name he seemed to have a problem with shortening.
“So where were you?” Jeffers asked again.
“We got a lot of chores here that need doing. I could’ve been on a run, or down in the cellar …”
“Which one is it?”
“I don’t … remember. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal,” Jeffers started, “is that a man is
dead.”
Leland crossed his arms over his barrel chest and rolled his eyes.
“Leland,” I said.
“Who are you anyway? You’re at the school, you’re here, at the store. It’s like I can’t get away from you.”
I ignored the question. “You told your father your sister was taking Mr. Macie’s class and was meeting him privately for coaching. Why did it bother you so much?”
“Because it’s not right.”
“Why?
“Because,” he said a little louder. Jeffers took a casual step toward him. “It’s not respectable,” he said a little more calmly. “It goes against the doctrine. The things they do in that class. And meeting a man alone. It’s not proper. It’s not what we’re taught. It’s sinful.”
It sounded to me like Leland was simply restating what he’d heard his father say with very little understanding as to why he’d said it.
“She’s always doing stuff like that,” he continued, a hint of petulance colouring his words.
“Like what?” Jeffers asked.
“Stuff. Going places. Reading … books. Corney too! Always listening to music and sneaking off to the movies. They think no one knows. But we know. Me and Da. And when Da’s too busy to take care of things, it’s up to me.” He said the last proudly.
“Did you take care of Mr. Macie?”
“I … what?”
“Where were you on the morning Mr. Macie was killed?”
“I told you. I was—”
“You weren’t in the orchard. And I don’t think you were in the cellar, or on a run, or out here in the barn.”
“I …”
“Your sister went to see Mr. Macie that morning around six. Did you know that?”
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