Help for the Haunted(44)

Howard Mason. Brother of male victim. Lacks verifiable alibi in the days surrounding murders. Motive?

“Where’s Louise?” I asked as Rummel opened the door, seconds after I pushed that folder away.

He stopped a moment, taking in the sight of me at the table, those folders he’d left behind. “Ms. Hock decided she’s done for the afternoon. We all are, actually.”

I reached for my father’s tote and began to stand, but the detective held up a hand and told me to hang on a second. I sat back down, studying him. Judging from his grim face and hunched shoulders, I got the feeling that he and Louise had a fight about me. He folded his arms in front of his chest and said, “Here’s how this is going to work, Sylvie. Right now, it’s Friday. Just after three. Not much is going to get done at this point. But come Monday, nine A.M., the gears start turning. So we’ll give you till then. That’s—”

“Sixty-six hours,” I said, staring at the watch on his hairy wrist.

Rummel glanced at it too. “Is that what it works out to?” He fixed me with a look I didn’t recognize. “You’re a quick thinker, Sylvie. And that’s right: you’ve got sixty-six hours to consider exactly what you did or did not see in the church last winter. First thing Monday you will report back here and you will let us know whether or not you’ll be recanting your account of that evening. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Rummel gathered his folders from the table as I sat watching.

“And if I do recant, what happens?”

“What happens, Sylvie, is that the game changes. Significantly. Lynch will likely be released. We’ll be back to square one.”

“And will you look at other suspects?”

“That’s my job.”

“Who?” I asked, thinking of the note scratched inside one of those folders.

“Well, if it comes to that, I’d count on you and your sister to help. We should have talked about other possibilities in greater detail early on, before zeroing in on just Lynch. That was my slipup. But if things change come Monday, I’ll want to hear from both of you if there was anyone else who had reason to do your parents harm. Someone you might not have thought of before. Also, we should talk again about why they left Rose at home that night. I know you both said that was normal, but other people might not think so.”

Mr. Knothead—that was the name of Rose’s pet rabbit who once lived in the cage out by the well. She had begged for him one Christmas years before and given him that name on account of the bony lumps between his ears. Unlikely as it seemed, I thought of that twitchy-nosed creature then, the way I used to press my cheek to its soft white fur, feeling the frantic tic-tic-tic of his heart beneath. That’s how my heart felt the moment Rummel brought up my parents leaving Rose at home—a detail that had been dissected early on in the case but had since been accepted as fact. Now it was back, and I’d have to repeat the same story again, being more careful than ever not to give away the truth.

I took a breath. Swallowed. My mouth felt impossibly dry, but there was no more water in the paper cup Rummel had given me. Even if there had been, I thought it best not to speak for fear he might pick up some signal—a wavering in my voice, like ripples on water—that would give birth to new suspicions. And so I said nothing more. I stood from the table. I picked up my father’s tote. I tucked my journal away.

“Guess you write about more than school in that little book of yours. Those things you read to Ms. Hock and me before? Not exactly notes on a homework assignment.” Before I could respond, he turned and stepped out into the hall.

I took a minute to compose myself, then followed. Rose was sitting on a bench, flipping through one of the random safety brochures we both took to reading while we waited. The Heimlich Maneuver. Stop, Drop, and Roll. Pedestrian Precautions. By now, we were prepared for just about anything. I wondered if the detective might want to see her alone again, but he simply informed her in a more formal tone than usual that we were both required to be back at the station Monday morning at nine. As they spoke, I glanced down the hall where Dereck hunched over a water fountain, his height making it appear like one meant for children.

After Rummel walked off, my sister turned to me and asked what happened inside that room. Again, I glanced at Dereck, guzzling away still. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it here—”

“Old Seven drinks more than a farm animal,” Rose told me, “so it’ll be a while. And the guy wonders why he has to pee all the time.”

“He’s your boyfriend,” I told her, testing the label.

“I wouldn’t go that far, Sylvie. Now what happened?”

Quickly, quietly, I ticked off the details about the second snowbird, about the dog that broke loose, about Lynch saving it from running into the street. I was about to tell her more when she stood from the bench. I watched her walk to the bulletin board, tack the brochure back where she found it next to one I’d already read about the dangers of going near a live wire after a storm. “I already knew that stuff,” she told me, turning around again. “They talked to me first, remember?”

The doubt I felt about who I’d seen inside the church was something I’d never confessed to anyone before—not even Rose. I was afraid of how she would react if she knew I’d let it slip out at last, but she needed to know, so I pushed on, “Mrs. Dunn gives him a stronger alibi, which means—”