The Frailty of Flesh Read online

  She was sharp. And cautious, and he respected both qualities.

  “Ashlyn?”

  She turned her gaze back to him. “And you asked the name.”

  Tain nodded. “He said it was Shannon.”

  “And you asked her last name…”

  “Christopher didn’t volunteer a single word. He answered my questions directly, but with no additional information.”

  Her mouth twisted again, that uncertain, uneasy look distorting her features.

  “I know, it’s odd,” Tain said. “I’ve had more information offered up by members of organized crime gangs up on soft charges.”

  “And Christopher Reimer is just a kid.”

  “But it was his brother who was murdered.” A fact that raised another question in Tain’s mind, and he felt certain she was wondering the same thing. Once Christopher had identified the attacker as Shannon Reimer, his older sister, Tain had asked if he knew the victim. There had been no change in Christopher’s voice, no wavering, no hesitation, nothing. He’d said, “Jeffrey,” and then, just before Tain could ask, added, “Jeffrey Reimer.”

  Christopher had removed a wallet from his pocket. Inside, ID confirmed his address, that he was just a few weeks short of his twelfth birthday, and there was a photo of three healthy kids, two of whom Tain could already identify.

  Once Christopher had confirmed the girl in the photo was Shannon, Tain had given the photo to another officer with instructions to circulate her description and begin searching for her immediately.

  He’d left Christopher with two Port Moody police officers. They were watching him until Tain and Ashlyn finished at the scene and were ready to take him home and notify the family. Under normal circumstances Tain would have liked to take Christopher to the station for questioning, but he was a child. Tain couldn’t sort out what he thought of the boy’s behavior. The only thing he knew for certain was that he wanted Ashlyn there when Christopher Reimer was questioned again.

  “Shock?” Ashlyn asked.

  Tain shrugged.

  He watched as Ashlyn turned and walked along the sidewalk, toward the parking lot where two uniformed officers were waiting for them.

  Tain kept pace beside her. He knew she could have covered the short distance in a matter of seconds. Instead, she seemed to be drawing it out, giving herself time to let her thoughts gel.

  Two officers were waiting near the front right bumper of their patrol car. One stood, the other leaned back, butt on the edge of the hood of the cruiser, legs spread apart, arms folded across his chest. The back passenger side door was open, the tousled brown hair on top of the boy’s head barely visible.

  The one leaning against the car, whose name was Parker, chomped on a piece of gum without dislodging the cocky grin. He had dark hair. From even the little gossip Tain heard he knew Parker considered himself a bit of a ladies’ man, and a lot of female police officers seemed to agree with that assessment.

  Tain resisted the urge to smile when Ashlyn ignored him completely and addressed the other officer.

  “How is he?”

  “Uh…” The officer, whose name was Bennett, stood with his mouth open as he glanced at Parker, who relieved him of the need to answer.

  “We’ve taken good care of him.”

  Ashlyn slowly turned to look at Parker. “Got him something to eat, drink? Offered to put some heat on in the car?” She glanced at the open door and shook her head. Ashlyn straightened up as she turned back to Parker and lowered her voice. “Wonderful job, I’d say. Stellar.”

  There was no way for anyone to miss the sarcasm that saturated her words, and Tain watched as the cocky grin fell from Parker’s face. “We did what we were told. We’re ready to take him home, just waitin’ on the official okay.”

  “We’ll be talking to the family, so Christopher can come with us,” Ashlyn said. “You guys are done here. You can check in with Sims and see where he needs you.”

  Parker’s mouth hung open for just a second too long to go unnoticed, and then his jaw tensed. “But—”

  “I am in charge of this case and this crime scene, Constable Parker.” She glared at him for a moment, then walked toward the open door.

  Tain watched as the officer’s gaze followed her, and the corner of Parker’s mouth twisted into a scowl. His, “Whatever you say, ma’am,” response was barely audible, but the tone came through loud and clear.

  “Is there a problem?” Tain asked him.

  The officer’s focus shifted to Tain’s face, and after a second he started chomping on his gum again. Parker reminded Tain of one of those stereotypical U.S. patrol cops they always had on TV shows, with their dark sunglasses, willingness to use force even if unnecessary and inclination to see women as pretty li’l things in need of rescuing.

  “No.” The cynical smile was back in place. “No problem.”

  Tain leaned closer and said, “There better not be.” His voice had just enough edge that, from the corner of his eye, he could see Ashlyn glance back at them, but Tain kept his focus on the man in front of him.

  He’d worked with guys like that before. Head full of attitude and an undersized dick they were compensating for that was still bigger than their brain.

  Kind of guy who was reckless. Who’d screw up on the job and expect his brothers in blue to close ranks to protect him.

  Kind of guy who could get someone killed.

  Ashlyn felt her cheeks burn but tried to suppress her annoyance. A few years earlier Tain’s protectiveness would have pissed her off, but now it was Parker’s attitude that got to her. She had a job to do, and so did they. Politics and prejudices shouldn’t get in the way, but all too often they did.

  There were far more important things to think about. Christopher Reimer was hunched in the backseat of the car, where he’d been for over an hour. His face was pale. Not ghostly white, just lacking color, the way skin did this time of year in an area where residents were denied exposure to the sun day after day.

  She knelt down beside him. “I’m Constable Hart. We’re going to take you home now.”

  There was no change in his expression. He didn’t look up, just sat slouched down on the seat and stared at his feet, as though he hadn’t even heard her.

  “Christopher?”

  “Whatever.”

  Ashlyn was glad he still hadn’t looked up because she was able to push the frown off her face before he had a chance to see it. It was never easy to deal with kids, but this one was particularly tough to read.

  “Come on. We’re taking my car.”

  That finally got Christopher to look at her. His eyes were hooded, face still expressionless as he let out a deep breath and muttered, “Whatever.”

  If Tain hadn’t relayed the details of his interview with Christopher, she would have wondered whether that was the only word in his vocabulary. She straightened up, stepped back and watched as Christopher Reimer got out of the car and walked across the parking lot. His baggy jeans were streaked with mud near the bottom, and from the knee down on the left side they were wet. The thin shirt he was wearing barely covered his thin frame, but from the way he carried himself Ashlyn suspected he was pretty strong. He was more of a lean, tough type emerging, rather than a scrawny weakling.

  Ashlyn exchanged a look with Tain as she reached for the door, pushed it shut and followed Christopher to their car.

  It was a short drive around the head of the Burrard Inlet. The city of Port Moody embraced the tip of the fjord on the one side and nestled up against the foot of Eagle Mountain on the other. Port Moody, City of the Arts, was a nature lover’s playground. From where they’d found Jeffrey Reimer’s body at Rocky Point Park a network of trails and boardwalks formed an extensive walking path. With the proximity to Belcarra Regional Park it wasn’t unheard of for joggers and walkers to encounter bears. There had been problems in recent years with coyote packs living in the forest the walkways wove through, and there were even sporadic cougar sightings.

  Tra
ffic heading into Port Moody was light. Ashlyn had only a matter of minutes to compose herself before the next stage of the investigation. People always said stupid things, like practice makes perfect, but no matter how many times they handled notification it never got any easier.

  Even Tain seemed unusually quiet, although she suspected that was because of their passenger. Tain’s usual brand of irreverent humor could draw criticism from seasoned cops, but she knew there was no way he’d shoot off his mouth in front of a child.

  Tain slowed the car. “Is this the right address?”

  Christopher exhaled. “Yeah,” he said.

  Ashlyn thought over what Tain had said about his interview with Christopher, and what he’d left unsaid. Christopher had a reserved, cool demeanor, as though he was bored and inconvenienced by being detained by the police.

  Trauma did strange things to people. She’d experienced it herself and in her mind’s eye could look back and see herself reacting to her fear, feeling as though she was looking at someone else. The intensity of her own reactions had surprised her, and she didn’t recognize that person. It was a side of herself she was uncomfortable being confronted with, but now keenly aware of. Emotionally, she liked to be in control. The experience of actually being in shock, and losing her sense of power over herself had been as difficult to deal with as the events that had put her in shock in the first place.

  Still, she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, exactly, but Christopher’s reactions didn’t feel as though they were about shock. There was something else, and she was certain Tain shared her misgivings about their only witness.

  As they got out of the car the front door to the house opened. A man appeared. He had black hair, cut short, and looked to be a bit below average height, in decent shape. One of those chiseled faces, dark eyes.

  Ashlyn noted that in a split-second summary, but the scowl on his face as he marched toward them was what really stood out. “What’s he done?”

  The words weren’t polite or born out of exasperation. They were laced with anger and accusations. Ashlyn and Christopher had walked around from the passenger side of the car, and the man she presumed was Richard Reimer walked right up between Tain and Ashlyn and grabbed the boy’s arm.

  Christopher pulled back, and for a moment they were locked in a tug of war. Richard Reimer tried to grab his son’s other arm. Before Ashlyn could order him to stop, and identify herself as a police officer, Christopher swung. He planted a decent blow squarely on his father’s jaw. Richard let go of him and staggered back, mouth hanging open as he stared at his son. Then he clenched his jaw as his cheeks turned purple, and he raised his fist. He looked like he was going to strike back. Tain stepped forward.

  “I’m Constable Tain and this is my partner, Constable Hart. Sir—”

  Christopher let out a yelp and ran toward the house.

  Ashlyn released her grip on her gun, dropped her hand and felt her jacket fall over her weapon. A woman had appeared on the doorstep. Presumably Mrs. Reimer, she appeared to be an older, well-used version of her living son. Pale cheeks and wavy brown hair, Tracy Reimer was what Ashlyn would call solid. Not heavy but not slight, she appeared to be as tall as her husband.

  Christopher’s sudden display of emotion made an already difficult task that much harder. Ashlyn had expected him to flee into the house, but instead he remained on the front step, with his head lowered. He didn’t reach out to his mother for physical comfort but just stood there.

  Ashlyn heard Richard Reimer mutter, “What the hell’s going on?” but he didn’t force the question. Tracy Reimer remained silent, as though there was nothing unusual about two plainclothes RCMP officers bringing her eleven-year-old son home, or the need to break up a physical confrontation between her husband and child on their front lawn.

  From the corner of her eye Ashlyn saw Tain’s glance and could feel her eyebrows arch, even as she fought to keep her face blank.

  Tain gestured at the door. “Perhaps it would be best if we spoke inside.”

  Richard gaped at him for a few seconds before he turned and moved toward the house.

  Ashlyn started to follow. She’d taken a few steps when Christopher said, “Jeffrey’s dead.” Then he ran inside, the sound of footsteps fading as he sprinted up the stairs, legs quickly disappearing from Ashlyn’s limited view inside the house.

  Tracy Reimer just stood there, face blank and colorless. She looked from Ashlyn to Tain without so much as a shrug of her shoulders, a widening of her eyes or the tiniest hint of wrinkles on her brow.

  Her husband walked up to her and said, “I’ll call the lawyer.”

  Ashlyn saw Tain glance at her, and she gave a small shake of her head. Let Richard Reimer call. She wanted to know why he thought he needed a lawyer when he hadn’t even asked what had happened to his son.

  Or where his daughter was.

  She wanted to know if this was the usual level of drama maintained in the Reimer household.

  They followed Tracy Reimer inside. The house was neat and what Ashlyn would call showy. Just off the landing there were double glass doors that opened up to a living room, the kind with sofas that looked stiff and uncomfortable, as though they’d been taken out of plastic wrap the day before, and shelves with thick volumes of books that didn’t have their spines cracked. There was no evidence of children in the room, not even family photos. The walls were a nondescript white, and there was no artwork to break the monotony. Ashlyn didn’t sit down. Neither did Tain.

  Tracy Reimer perched on the edge of the love seat, back straight, hands folded neatly on her lap.

  From the hall Ashlyn heard the brusque words as Richard ordered his lawyer to meet them at their house immediately. Everything after that was answered with a “yes” or “no,” so Ashlyn couldn’t get a sense of the context. At one point Richard added, “family emergency,” but that was followed by another “yes,” and then he hung up.

  “Our lawyer’s on his way,” he said as he entered the living room, without looking up. He sat on a chair that was beside, but at a slight angle to, the love seat, with such force that his wife glared at him for a moment. He was either unaware or ignoring her.

  Ashlyn saw Tain’s split-second glance but didn’t intervene.

  “Mr. Reimer, may I ask why you felt you needed your lawyer?” he asked.

  Richard looked up, his hand mechanically massaging his jaw. “You can’t question Christopher without a lawyer. He has rights.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Reimer, we aren’t here to question Christopher,” Ashlyn said. “We’re here to inform you that your son Jeffrey was found dead this morning at the water park at Rocky Point.”

  Richard stopped rubbing his chin and lowered his hand. “You mean, you haven’t arrested Christopher?”

  “Mr. Reimer, is there some reason why you’d assume Christopher would kill his brother?” Tain asked.

  “Well…” He directed a wide-eyed stare at his wife, who quickly lowered her gaze, then held up his left hand, palm up, almost as though asking a question. “You brought him with you.”

  Would you have preferred we leave him at the park to walk home by himself? Ashlyn bit her bottom lip to keep from saying something she’d regret later.

  “Christopher was found near the scene, and he identified Jeffrey. We—”

  Tain was interrupted by a loud bang from upstairs. Richard and Tracy both sprang to their feet, but Ashlyn raised her hand and gestured for them to sit back down.

  “Stay here,” she ordered them as she reached for her gun.

  Tain led the way to the foyer. Their visual checks were instinctive as they scanned the staircase and what they could see of the upper hallway. She followed Tain to the second floor, both with guns drawn.

  These were the moments that required extreme mental focus. You never knew what you’d face around the next bend or behind a bathroom door. You hoped for the best, expected the worst and had to be ready to deal with anything.

  Ashlyn was only a
few steps behind Tain as he moved down the hallway and approached the first door, but she could see that it was open. Carefully, he looked into the room from the side of the doorway, then lowered his gun and stepped inside.

  She still approached with caution, but when she glanced inside she could see enough from a mirror above the dresser to know it was safe to enter.

  A child’s room, obviously Jeffrey’s. Unlike the sterile living room below this was a space that resonated with warmth. A car mat was on the floor beside the bed and a table with a train track on it was between the mat and the wall. Buckets in bright primary colors were overflowing with toys. The green walls were filled with posters of frogs, dinosaurs, Spider-Man, crayon drawings of spaceships, a photo of Jeffrey and Shannon laughing and hugging each other. In the far corner, between the window and the bed, there was a hammock filled with stuffed animals, and below that a shelf that had picture books spilling off it. Beneath the window there was a child’s art desk and chair.

  Christopher Reimer sat on the bed and held a string attached to a burst balloon. It was then that Ashlyn noticed the cluster of ribbons tied to the bedpost, one foil “happy birthday” balloon still bobbing in the air. The rest lay limp and lifeless in a pile on the floor.

  The tear-stained cheeks were the only evidence of his earlier outburst. Christopher sat, slouched forward, gaze fixed on the floor, expressionless.

  As Ashlyn reached back to holster her gun Tain said, “Wh—”

  “Leave me alone!” Christopher sprang off the bed, ran out of the room, and seconds later they heard a door slam down the hall.

  Tain looked at Ashlyn and shrugged. “That went well.”

  She shook her head and followed him back to the stairs. Richard Reimer had entered the foyer below and was opening the door. A man entered. The Reimers’ lawyer had just arrived, and from their vantage point they could see enough to know who it was.