A dizzying feeling of hope overwhelmed her. The hope that Halprin had received a call because they had found Fran. That she was alive and in good shape. Then she immediately dropped that thought. In good shape. Even if Fran had survived this crime, she would never again be in good shape. And neither would Tessa’s parents. Or Hank’s family. Or she herself, Tessa.
8
Halprin returned and sat down again. At no time did he take his eyes off her.
“You call Fran Miller your half sister?”
“Not in a legal sense, but . . . emotionally. My mother has always taken on foster children. Over the years, I think there were twelve or thirteen.”
Halprin twirled his pen and made another note.
She took advantage of the opportunity to ask a question herself. “Is Tsaytis Chelin a suspect? I heard that he was the one who discovered the bodies.”
Halprin looked at her searchingly before answering. “So far, there are no murder suspects, if that’s what you mean.”
Relief ran through her body. Only for a few seconds. Then she quickly realized that Halprin’s words were not a guarantee that they didn’t suspect Tsaytis.
“What exactly did he see at the crime scene?”
“We cannot give you any information about that for now. That’s all part of the investigation.”
Of course Halprin could not divulge any details that only the murderer would know.
She didn’t give up: “Who saw Fran on Monday in Whatou Lake?”
He answered with another question. It was not her job to ask questions in this conversation. “Didn’t Fran contact her parents? In order to let them know she was here?”
“I don’t know anything about that. My parents certainly would have said something to me.” Tessa felt like she was groping in the dark.
Halprin didn’t show any sign of impatience. “I will talk to your parents. Every piece of information is important.”
She recognized the message behind the words. The sergeant must have gotten an ambiguous impression of Kenneth Griffins, who had, up to now, avoided talking to him. She felt that she had to defend her parents. “You must understand . . . my father is the doctor. He’s worried about my mother’s condition. He’s afraid that she would not make it through questioning. Fran Miller is like a daughter to her. And she idolizes her grandchildren.”
Whom she would never again see alive. Tessa looked out the window at the facade of an automobile repair shop. She could never have imagined that her parents’ world could break down in such an awful way. Four murders.
“I have to leave now,” Halprin said and got up. “I’ll be in touch with your family.”
She also stood up. He was not taller than she was, maybe five foot five, but his body was like a fortress. One that I’d like to break through.
She asked herself what Whatou Lake would make of Halprin. He was in foreign territory, ripped out of his everyday life in Vancouver, maybe out of his family with children, his sports activities or whatever it was he did there. On the other hand, she was in familiar territory, but she now considered it hostile. They had one thing in common: like her, he was under great pressure to deliver answers about this tragedy as quickly as possible.
She stuck her hands in the pockets of her navy-blue tapered jacket. When she was at the door, she heard Halprin asking, “As soon as possible, could you please give me a list of all the foster children your parents took into the house and where they are now?”
She turned around. He was busy getting the papers on his desk in order.
“Yes,” she said. “In one case, however, I don’t know where the person is. Patricia Corte.”
“We’ll find out about that,” said the sergeant somewhat absentmindedly. “Just write down the name.“
“Patricia was an arsonist, a pyromaniac. My parents did everything they could for her, but nevertheless she went off on the wrong track.”
This caught his attention and he made a note. “Are you or is anyone in your family in touch with her?”
“No, we haven’t heard from her for many years.”
“Did Fran and Patricia live with your family at the same time?”
“Only for a short time, maybe a couple of months. Fran was the absolute opposite of Patricia. Well-adjusted and obedient. “
“Inconspicuous,” Halprin muttered, more to himself than to her.
She knew exactly what he meant. Inconspicuous people so often had dark depths to them.
“Sometimes Fran could also be stubborn,” she went on. “After she graduated from school, she began a nursing program, but right in the middle of it she broke it off. She had almost finished two years, and she just stopped. My parents had a long talk with her at the time, but she wouldn’t change her mind.” She shrugged her shoulders regretfully. “She wanted to raise cattle with Hank, and that was also a flop. The price of meat tanked, and they had to sell the animals.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Oh, a few years ago. By then she was already pregnant with Breena. But I don’t want to hold you up.” She nodded to the sergeant and hurried past the constable and down the stairs.
9
When she reached the street, she looked around to get the lay of the land. There was no sign of Tsaytis Chelin. She didn’t see any face she knew.
Suddenly she felt exhausted, and her knees started shaking. Her stomach was almost empty. She hid behind her sunglasses and walked to Tim Hortons. As a student she had a summer job selling donuts and cheap coffee there.
She ordered some soup and a decaffeinated Americano. The young waitress said that she had to brew it up, since almost nobody here drank decaf. The lunch hour was over and the fast-food restaurant was almost empty. She sat down at a table with her back to the entrance. The place looked exactly as it had when she worked there. Clean and bare. She called her father on her cell and repeated the offer she had made before—that she would identify the bodies alone if he felt he should stay home with her mother. He once again declined. They agreed to meet in front of the hospital.
Without a real appetite, she ate the broccoli-cheese soup and in the meantime answered some emails from her clients. Fran had always made fun of her when Tessa, on one of her rare visits to the farm, began to get nervous and couldn’t reach her Vancouver office by iPhone. If Fran had Internet or a cell phone connection, she would have left an electronic trail. And Tessa would now be looking at the display on the cell screen, hoping there would be a message for her. Time ran mercilessly forward, and there was still no sign of Fran. Tessa discovered a statement from the police on the Internet announcing a press conference in Whatou Lake the following Saturday. My God, that was three days from now!
Finally the coffee was ready. Still deeply immersed in her iPhone, she looked at her electronic appointment calendar and remembered that she had to send off the list with the foster children’s names for Sergeant Halprin. Would all the people on the list be questioned and have their alibis checked? Savannah was the only one of them who still lived in Whatou Lake. All the others had spread out all over Canada. Philip was a successful businessman living with his wife and children in New Zealand of all places. Tessa had had only sporadic contact with some of the earlier foster children on Facebook or through Christmas cards. She always spoke with Philip on New Year’s Eve on the telephone.
As far as Tessa was concerned, most of the foster children were simply intruders, competition that always created an imbalance in the family. Outsiders who took away her mother’s attention. They caused problems and upheaval and were sometimes even threatening. Like Patricia, who had set fire to Tessa’s hut in the forest. Dad had built the cabin for her as a refuge. He understood much better than Mom how much the constant expansion of the family weighed on her. Mother always expected her biological daughter to help with chores and babysitting. Tessa developed into a rebellious teenager, a disruptive daughter who would rather be losing herself in the wilderness or reading books in her small cabin in the woods.
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Quite often Martha Griffins took in children with problems. In Tessa’s eyes, Patricia was by far the worst. Even worse than Savannah. She stole, lied, and fought constantly with Tessa. It was only when Patricia set fire to the hut in the woods that her mother admitted she was at her wit’s end. Patricia was put in a home for especially difficult children, where she terrorized other kids. Finally she was sent to juvenile detention after she seriously injured a girl by cutting her with scissors. After she was released, she joined a street gang and became a prostitute, and that was the last the Griffins heard about her.
These days Tessa understood such children better, the draw of the downward spiral in which Patricia landed. Children who didn’t know love had no chance. For some, help from good people like Martha Griffins came too late.
“Who do we have here? Tessa Griffins! Why do such awful things always happen when you’re around?” Tessa shuddered when she heard the sharp voice. Lola Dole. Jenny Dole’s mother stood in front of her. A little bit older and larger now but with the same carefully styled hair. Tessa would never have expected to run into Jenny’s mother in Tim Hortons. Lola Dole was not a woman who frequented fast-food restaurants. She would be much more likely to invite women from the United Church for coffee and cake at her very nice house.
“Many people would call that karma.” Lola Dole took a step toward her. That opened up her view of the counter, where an older woman nosily looked in her direction. Tessa assumed that someone had phoned up Lola Dole and told her that Tessa was at Tim Hortons.
Lola’s face collapsed into a bitter laugh. “God does not allow any evil deed to go unpunished, and if you don’t believe that now, then even God cannot help you.”
Tessa put down her spoon next to the soup bowl, gathered her things, and got up. She placed herself right in front of Lola. “You simply don’t want to believe that Jenny lied to you back then. So now you make life miserable for other people who are not guilty of anything. You should read the Bible more carefully, Lola.”
She turned on her heel and aimed for the door. There, Lola’s curse reached her. “The Bible says, ‘May my blood come over you.’ Maybe Fran was eaten by a grizzly like my Jenny was.”
Tessa hurried down Main Street in the direction of the hospital. Suddenly everything overwhelmed her. But what did she expect? There were plenty of reasons why she had left Whatou Lake. And Jenny had never really been buried.
Tessa tried to mobilize the strategies that had helped her as a lawyer so she could remain calm and functioning. Most important: Separate emotions and job. Second: Analyze the situation. Third: See what would help to solve the case. Fourth: What’s a priority, and what can be dismissed for the time being? Fifth: What is the next step?
The bodies.
She saw the ruby-colored Pathfinder in the parking lot of the hospital, in the spot reserved for doctors. Her father was waiting in the car. She had hardly taken her seat on the passenger’s side when she started to shiver. Kenneth Griffins put his arm around her to calm her down.
“Lola Dole,” she spit out. “She wants . . . a grizzly to attack Fran.”
Her father looked at her questioningly. It took a while before she was in a state to tell him about the run-in with Jenny’s mother.
He sat there without speaking, hugged her strongly, and nodded several times before he slowly said, “Lola lost her daughter, Tessa. You don’t get over a thing like that.” She looked at him. His eyes were red and watery. “Let Lola be Lola, dear. We have to take care of other things.”
His words were like a cold shower. Shocked, Tessa realized again why they were here. Her father held her hand so tightly it hurt.
“It will be hard for us, but I want to take a very careful look. I want to know how it happened. The police are not going to give us much information for a while. You know that better than I do. It’s our best chance to find out more.” He pulled his hand back. “We have to go now, Squirrel. Be strong.” Squirrel. His nickname for her. How long had it been since she had last heard it?
When they entered the hospital, she was gripped by fear, as if she was going into a house of horrors. They hurried through the empty corridor of the basement. The building was astonishingly big for a small town like Whatou Lake because it was the clinic responsible for people and settlements in an area covering hundreds of square kilometers. For a long time, Tessa’s father had been the only doctor around here. Now there were three doctors in town, and all the personnel they met in the corridor greeted Kenneth Griffins with deep respect. A slender woman with a childlike face stood in front of the door to the morgue. She introduced herself as the forensic expert from Vancouver.
Kenneth Griffins had insisted he wouldn’t identify the bodies by photos, which was almost always how it was done these days. Apparently, because he was a doctor, they did not try to change his mind about this. After her father had exchanged some words with the forensic expert, Tessa repeated to herself the sentence that had become a mantra: I have to do this for Fran. I have to do this for Fran.
Somebody hurried down the hallway toward them. Ron Halprin. The chief investigator in person, wearing a dark suit with an official RCMP badge. He introduced himself to the two others present before giving Tessa a quick, slightly surprised look.
“Miss Griffins, are you ready?” the forensic expert asked.
Tessa nodded.
They went into the morgue where a young male nurse wearing a large apron was waiting with the corpses. The forensic expert gave him instructions that Tessa could only partly hear while she stared at the outlines under the sheets.
Halprin looked at the scene with a serious face.
First Hank’s body was shown. The nurse pulled back the sheets over Hank’s head. Tessa saw Hank’s motionless face, the slightly opened mouth, the only half-closed eyes. It seemed to her that she was looking at a stranger. But it was Hank, no question about it. His head and his neck seemed untouched. The bullets must have hit him lower down.
“That’s Hank Miller,” her father confirmed.
They rolled away the cart bearing Hank’s body. Tessa focused her eyes on a sign with instructions hanging on the wall, without reading the words. She only turned around again as her father whispered her name.
The first thing she noticed was the bare spot on Breena’s head where the bullets had hit her. Her long, sandy-colored hair shaved away. Breena was so proud of her hair. Although she was only eight years old, she knew exactly what an impression it made. Tessa closed her eyes before forcing herself to look at Breena’s face. It seemed to be less waxy than Hank’s, much more alive, as if she were only sleeping. Tessa almost gave in to the temptation to stroke Breena’s cheek, to kiss the snub nose. Her father had already told her on the phone that Breena had been lying in her bed, meaning that the murderer had stood right in front of her. Tessa glanced at her father. His features had turned into a mask. Would both of them get through this?
When she saw Clyde, she wanted to run out of the room. The bullet had gone into his right eye. She stared at the wound. Somebody had shot the six-year-old child in the eye. Her father grabbed her arm. Was he looking for support, or was it an attempt to support her?
She tried to read the expression in his eyes. Dad, why did you force this on yourself? And on me?
But Kenneth Griffins kept his face turned away from her. The forensic expert said something to them. It sounded like a warning, but Tessa wasn’t listening. Didn’t want to listen. She just wanted to drag her father away from this horror show. Four-year-old Kayley had been his favorite child, even as a baby, but his adulation became even stronger when she began to talk. Every time Kayley had come for a visit, he told Tessa about her mixed-up words, which always made him laugh. He missed her babbling and her sweet face after she returned to the farm with her parents and siblings.
The nurse pulled back the fourth sheet. Tessa looked at her father as he neared the autopsy table. The pain distorted his face. Then he abruptly turned away and went to the exit witho
ut looking at anybody. She heard the door slam.
Tessa looked up and met Ron Halprin’s gaze. He’s registering my reaction, she thought. The forensic expert already wanted to pull the sheet back over Kayley’s face. Tessa, with a wave of her hand, stopped her. She wanted to see the child. Slowly Tessa’s feet started to move. As if she were in a trance, she walked around the autopsy table. She shuddered as she saw the little girl. Sweetness was completely gone from her small face. Her lips were skewed and her tiny teeth were visible, the eyes half-opened and turned upward so you could only see the whites of her eyes.
“What in God’s name . . .” was the only thing she could say before her voice failed. The force of the bullet had shredded the girl’s skull. As Tessa looked at the gaping wound, she felt coldness creeping up in her. She was so icy that she felt anesthetized. And the horror. Suddenly everything in her was quiet. As if her strength was loading up and ready to explode at the right moment. Her brain emptied itself of all ballast and set her free to take care of everything she had come to Whatou Lake for. She turned to Halprin, a silent presence, but she could only manage a nod. Without saying anything, he nodded back.
All the children had been shot in the head. The wounds she had seen said all she needed to know.
Shot right up close.
All three hit in the same way.
Executed.
10
His shoulders sagging, her father sat on one of the vinyl chairs in the hallway.
A dark-haired young woman was handing him coffee in a paper cup as Tessa came out of the morgue. Kenneth Griffins silently took the coffee. Tessa sat down next to him and put her hand on his arm. The young woman introduced herself as a reporter for the Whatou Lake News. She was new in town. Reporters didn’t last long in this journalistic wasteland.
“I’m Tessa Griffins. Unfortunately, we can’t say anything about this,” Tessa explained and was surprised at the strength of her voice. So normal. As if nothing had happened. “We don’t know much of anything at this point.”
MURDEROUS MORNING: A heart-stopping crime novel with a stunning end. Page 5
