“You couldn’t stand me when you met me.”
“Who says anything’s changed?”
“Touché.”
“I know you were only joking about having me try to finesse the info out of Smythe, but I don’t think he’d give in. We didn’t even get to look through Shannon’s room yesterday.” She paused. “Let’s run wild with the theories for a second. If either Shannon or Christopher killed Jeffrey, don’t you think the parents would know which one did it?”
“There would probably be a history of violence, so yeah, I guess so.”
Ashlyn looked at him. “That means if Shannon isn’t a killer, but could be another victim, her parents probably know.”
“Which means either she’s guilty and they’re protecting her, or they know she’s innocent and they’re protecting Christopher.”
“Or this has something to do with Richard Reimer’s business dealings and someone else was in the park yesterday,” Ashlyn said.
“You know, Christopher’s statement never did sit right. Without any of the physical evidence to consider, something still seemed strange.”
That was what lingered on his mind as he parked the car. He knew that there was no one way people acted when they got shocking news, but everything about the Reimer family was wrong. Christopher had seemed nervous, agitated and been an unusual witness from the beginning. The physical altercation between Christopher and his father, the way Christopher just dumped the news about Jeffrey’s death on his parents…
Parents who then promptly called a lawyer. Was it because they knew more than they’d let on? Did they have reason to suspect that it wasn’t Shannon who’d murdered Jeffrey, but that she, too, was a victim? Is that why they’d never asked where their daughter was?
They followed the sidewalk to the door, and he rang the bell. When a woman answered he raised his ID.
“I’m Constable Tain, and this is my partner, Constable Hart. We were hoping you could answer a few questions for us.”
“Eleanor Pratt. Is this about the people next door?” She looked like a pragmatic type. Hair cut in a short and tidy fashion, the wisps of gray uncorrected, clothed in blue slacks and a red blouse, no makeup.
“We were wondering if you noticed anything unusual yesterday morning, maybe even the night before?” Ashlyn asked.
“The better question would be when didn’t I notice something unusual. The incident you witnessed yesterday morning between the older boy and his father, that is normal.” She gestured for them to come inside and shut the door behind them, but didn’t invite them past the landing. “The only thing odd about it was that the woman didn’t get involved.”
“You’ve witnessed regular physical confrontations between Christopher and his parents?” Tain asked.
The lines around her eyes deepened as she frowned. “Well, let’s put it this way. Both parents get physical with their children, but Christopher is the only one who fights back.” She paused. “He didn’t always. But one day, he got big enough. I used to see the parents…with Shannon. I was surprised you didn’t come asking questions yesterday.”
“Normally we would have,” Tain said. “Did you happen to see any of the family members leave the house yesterday before we arrived?”
She nodded. “They all left. It was still dark, and I was upstairs. I heard some shouting and looked out the window. Shannon was running down the driveway. Her father went after her and grabbed her arm. Christopher came out then and grabbed his dad. The little boy was crying and clinging to his sister. She ran down the road, with her little brother running after her, and Christopher ran after them.”
“What did Mr. Reimer do?” Ashlyn asked.
“He went back in the house.”
“And Mrs. Reimer?”
“If she was outside, I didn’t see her. It wasn’t until about ten minutes later that I heard the door slam and saw the parents leave. They were heading in the same direction their children had gone.”
“Could you tell if they were carrying anything?” Ashlyn asked.
Eleanor Pratt shook her head. “Not that I could see.”
“What about Shannon?”
“She had a bag with her.”
“Big? Small? Color?”
“I’m sorry. It was dark. I can’t be more specific. Blue or black would be my best guess. It was a large duffel bag.”
“Not a knapsack?”
“No.”
“Could you tell if anyone was wearing a dark hooded sweater?” Ashlyn asked.
The woman paused. “Now that I think about it, the parents looked like they’d just pulled on jogging pants and sweaters, but I think they had coats on. It’s hazy. All of them were wearing dark clothes. I wasn’t really paying attention to their clothing, just the fact that none of them looked like they were dressed for school or work.”
Tain glanced at Ashlyn, who was writing something on her notepad. “Is there any chance you could be more specific about the time you saw this?”
“Well, normally the alarm goes off at five thirty. My husband prefers to beat the rush-hour traffic. He left shortly after six A.M. I never went back to sleep yesterday. He’d brought me a mug of tea, and I was sitting by the window drinking it when Shannon ran out of the house. I confess, I watched them. I do know that when the parents left the house it was about six forty because I had my alarm set for that time, and it had just gone off.”
“Mrs. Pratt, did you ever call the police about the problems next door?” Tain suspected he knew the answer.
“I did. And I phoned social services.”
Ashlyn’s head snapped up then. “Any chance you remember who you spoke with, or if they ever followed up?”
A distant and thoughtful look crept into Eleanor Pratt’s eye and then she said, “Just one moment,” and disappeared down the hall. When she returned she handed Tain a card. “This woman came out to speak with me. I assumed it was all fairly straightforward, because they just had me cover what I’d said on the phone and thanked me for my time. As far as I could tell, nothing came of it.”
“When was this?” Tain asked.
“Thanksgiving. The shouting was so loud inside their house we could hear it from here.”
“And yesterday?” Ashlyn tapped her notepad with her pen. “Could you hear what they were saying?”
“I’m sorry. It was jumbled. ‘Let go.’ ‘Leave me alone.’ ‘Don’t touch her.’ What you’d expect, I guess.”
Ashlyn nodded. “Thank you very much for your time.” She paused as Tain passed Mrs. Pratt one of his business cards. “If you think of anything else, please let us know.”
Once Mrs. Pratt had closed the door behind them and they’d put some distance between themselves and the house, Ashlyn said, “It doesn’t exactly match up with what Mrs. Reimer said yesterday, does it?”
Tain shook his head. “But nothing about that family adds up.”
None of the other neighbors was as helpful. The Pratt house was closest to the Reimers, so it made sense that they would be more aware of any problems or incidents, but one resident farther down the road did add that they’d seen Shannon and Jeffrey Reimer running toward the paths the previous morning, before 6:30. That had been the time on the clock in their car when they’d left their house shortly afterward, but they hadn’t seen Christopher, or his parents.
“It’s something,” Ashlyn said as they returned to the car. Her cell phone rang, and she fished it out of her pocket. Tain didn’t have to ask who she was talking to; he was pretty sure he knew.
Her face clouded and she said nothing more than “We’re on our way” before hanging up.
“There’s no prize for guessing who that was.” She opened the passenger door and got in. “However, you get brownie points for good effort if you can guess why we’ve been called in now.”
“Don’t tell me they found Shannon,” he said as he started the car.
Ashlyn laughed. “Since when did you become an optimist? Nothing quite so helpful. Mr. Smythe wou
ld like an update on the status of our search for Shannon Reimer.”
“Shame you aren’t sick today. I’m sure it really would have pissed him off to come in to a police station on a weekend and not even get the consolation of seeing you.”
“You were expecting me to be sick?”
Tain glanced at her and hesitated. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she was annoyed by his remark, but instead she looked hurt. “You haven’t been yourself lately. I thought maybe you were fighting off the flu or something.”
“I’d have to be pretty sick to call in in the middle of a case like this.”
“I know. I didn’t mean anything by it. We had a long day yesterday and…Look, forget it. I just wish you didn’t have to deal with Smythe today.”
“That makes two of us.”
When they arrived at the station Smythe was waiting in an interview room, looking relaxed. He was in casual attire, pants and a sweater instead of the custom suits he was fond of, and sipping an overpriced coffee that did not come from their staff room.
“Constable,” Smythe said as Tain entered. When Ashlyn joined them a moment later Smythe smiled. “Ms. Hart. It’s always nice to see you. Makes up for coming in on the weekend.”
Tain saw the shadow flicker across Ashlyn’s face as she sat down. “I can’t say the same, Mr. Smythe. This is taking valuable time from our investigation. Unless your clients are willing to consent to interviews, or to allow us to search—”
“Not at this time.” Smythe took a sip of his coffee, apparently undeterred by her brusque tone. “They want to know what’s being done to find Shannon Reimer.”
“Everything that can be done is being done.”
“And by everything you mean…” He held up a hand, inviting her to elaborate.
Instead, Ashlyn stood. “This investigation is being hampered by your clients’ unwillingness to speak with us. We have limited information about Shannon’s friends, associates and family members, don’t have access to her diary or any information from her family about her state of mind before Jeffrey’s murder yesterday.”
“My clients are not going to make any statements that may be used to help support a murder charge against their own daughter.”
“Christopher Reimer already has.”
He waved his hand dismissively “Statements that will be thrown out as inadmissible. He was in shock, he wasn’t afforded legal counsel, he’s eleven years old.”
Ashlyn glanced at Tain. He knew what she was thinking. Every exchange with this lawyer would be a cat-and-mouse game, wondering when to play certain cards. Revealing that Shannon was not necessarily their prime suspect now might be enough to persuade Smythe to get his clients to cooperate with them…
But not if one of them was guilty. Then it would tip them off, let them know they were under suspicion.
“Just remember, Mr. Smythe, that a young girl is out there somewhere. She may be injured, frightened, alone. Trying to get status reports from us is only going to make it take longer for us to find her. To be blunt, I don’t have time for this.”
Ashlyn turned and started walking to the door as Tain stood up.
“Wait.” Smythe remained seated, but he didn’t look quite as confident as he had when they’d first entered the room. He reached into his pocket and removed a small address book. “Shannon’s. I expect it’s bought me a bit of goodwill.” He slid it across the table, toward Ashlyn.
She paused, blew out a breath, stepped toward the table and reached out for the book.
“If you expect to get information from us you’ll have to do better than that,” Ashlyn said as she reached for the book.
Smythe put his hand over hers. “And if you expect me to help you, you’ll have to change your attitude.”
The cocky grin slipped back into place as he stood, let go of her hand and walked out the door, leaving his coffee cup behind.
Craig sat in his vehicle, parked behind a Tim Hortons. He doubted parking behind a Tim Hortons at any time of the day was a good choice if you wanted to find a quiet place to think, but morning was especially bad. All the people who had to work needed their morning caffeine fix, and all the parents being dragged to the malls needed something to compensate for noisy kids and jostling with strangers in crowded stores as they tried to get their holiday shopping done.
It wasn’t until a cruiser pulled up beside him and the officer got out and knocked on his window that he glanced at the clock and realized how long he’d been there.
He held up his ID. “Sorry. I’ll go in, get my breakfast and be on my way.”
“A little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”
“I’m not here on a call. Not really.”
“You don’t have to worry about it. Look, your sergeant called my sergeant and asked us to keep an eye on the Harrington place, just let him know if anything unusual came up. Apparently you didn’t show up for work this morning, so he asked us to keep an eye out for you.”
Craig pushed his irritation aside. How could Zidani know he was here? “Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary at the Harrington residence?”
“Not until you showed up there this morning.”
After a moment of silence the officer slapped Craig’s door and stepped back. “Well, I did my bit.”
Craig passed the officer his card. “If anything unusual does happen at the Harrington house can you let me know?”
The man shrugged, said, “Sure,” took the card and went back to his car. Craig waited until he drove away, then reached for his phone.
There was no answer at the first number, so he tried Steve Daly’s office. It was a weekend, and that seemed like a long shot, but this time of year everyone was trying to get things done before Christmas break. He was in luck.
“Steve Daly, please.”
“I’m sorry, he isn’t in.”
“Do you know when you expect him?”
“Can I ask who’s calling?”
“Constable Craig Nolan, Coquitlam RCMP.” Silence. “His son.”
“Oh, right. Sorry I didn’t recognize your voice, Craig. You should be able to reach your father at home by now.”
“I just tried his residence there.”
“I meant home in BC. He flew back yesterday.”
“Are you sure? I knew Alison was back…”
“Um hmm. Mrs. Daly flew back yesterday morning. Steve left a few hours later, around noon.”
He hadn’t asked Alison when Steve was due home, but she’d given him the impression that his father was still in Regina. Craig wondered if she knew. If Steve had flown back midday, he should have been home about the time an intruder was breaking in to his basement. “You don’t happen to know why they flew at different times, do you?”
“Your father was supposed to leave tomorrow, but he made a last-minute change to his flight.”
They went through the formalities of wishing each other happy holidays and he hung up. Then he started his vehicle and headed for the highway.
He was beginning to wonder if he should have insisted Zidani give the Lockridge review to someone else. Zidani, who’d been so quick to point fingers and assume Craig had been given a free ride by his dad when Steve had been his senior officer, had assigned Craig to review a case that his father had worked on years before. Something wasn’t right about that.
It took longer than usual to work through the Saturday traffic. With only a few weeks of holiday shopping left Saturdays were hell on the roads. It was over an hour before he turned down the road his parents lived on.
There was an unmarked police car in the driveway just like the one he normally drove. It was empty.
He parked and jogged to the door, barely stopping to knock before he opened it and called out. “Alison? It’s Craig.” He went in and started up the stairs.
“Craig?”
He reached the landing just as she entered the hallway from the living room.
“I tried to call you.”
“When?”<
br />
“About an hour ago.”
When he’d been on the phone, talking to his dad’s secretary. He looked over Alison’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Luke held up his hand. “Relax. I answered the phone at your desk. Nobody knew where you were so I came out myself.”
“I’ve been on a call since before dawn.” Craig turned back to his stepmother. “Could you make some tea?”
She returned his gaze for a moment, then nodded and gave one of her looks that told him she could see right through the flimsy request. He wanted her out of the room and she knew it, but at that moment he really didn’t care. Once she was gone he walked right up to his partner and pointed a finger at him.
“You should have called me.”
“She said she tried.”
“The phone was busy, not out of the service area.”
“What’s your problem? I’d think you’d be happy someone came out here to check on her.”
“The problem is, I don’t want you anywhere near my family without me here.”
“So that’s it? You’re going to talk about lack of trust when you’re out on a call and don’t even let me know?”
“A call that has nothing to do with you,” Craig said. “It’s something Zidani ordered me to go through yesterday.”
“Yeah, the boxes you took home. Just in case your partner decides to snoop around, I guess.”
“Messages have been going missing from my desk.”
“Who do you think answers your phone and puts the messages there to begin with? What do I want with your messages?”
Craig stared at Luke. He had to admit that Luke had a point. He’d always thought Zidani had been the one, rifling through the garbage, rummaging through his desk drawers. He thought back to the day before, when he’d seen Luke lock his desk.
Alison entered then, carrying a tray with a teapot and three cups. They all sat down and went through the pretense of civility. Luke recapped what he knew, which wasn’t much more than they’d learned the day before. Whoever it was hadn’t even gotten inside this time. A neighbor had been walking their dog and the dog went crazy, broke free and ran into the Dalys’ backyard. It wasn’t until the dog’s owner caught up with his pet that he saw a dark form dashing through the trees. The dog’s leash had gotten tangled, which was the only reason he hadn’t caught the intruder.
The Frailty of Flesh Page 10