“The police were looking for him,” he said. “He didn’t want to go through the accusations all over again.”
He also had to explain about the gun. That had really bothered me. As soon as the police showed up, he had pulled a gun on me.
Riel said that when Mr. Henderson had finally seen Emily face-to-face and she had called him a murderer, it had probably been the last straw. He said he figured Mr. Henderson had hit bottom right then. He said that’s probably why he wanted Riel there, to put an end to it once and for all. That’s when I remembered what Mr. Henderson had said when he grabbed me. He had said, “Sorry.” Riel said there was even a name for it—suicide by cop. Except Riel wasn’t a cop anymore. Riel said he was going to see what he could do for Mr. Henderson, see who he could talk to, and maybe the charges against him would be dropped or, at least, he’d get off with a suspended sentence. He said he thought that would be fair.
But when Emily said to me, “They arrested him,” she wasn’t talking about Mr. Henderson.
“They arrested my father,” she said. She yelled the words at me. The two women who were going over the recital arrangements and the woman at the piano all turned to look at her. Emily didn’t seem to notice them. “They say he paid a man to kill my mother. They say he killed that man too.”
That was news to me. I knew the police were looking into it. Riel had told me. Detective Jones had told him. But I didn’t know they had arrested anyone yet.
“I hate you,” she said.
Right. Like she had ever actually liked me. Like I even cared.
“If it wasn’t for you,” she said, “this wouldn’t be happening.”
At first I thought I’d just keep my mouth shut. What was the point in arguing with her? But when she said that, it got to me.
“The cops found the guy’s body,” I said. “They figured out who he was. They knew he had your mother’s ring after she … died.” She winced when I mentioned her mother, and her eyes got all watery. Well, she had brought up the subject. “Then they found out your father was walking around the whole time, wearing the diamond that had been stolen from her. It didn’t have anything to do with me.”
Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the pure truth. But I had a lot of confidence in the cops. They would have figured it out even if I hadn’t said anything. Detective Jones had looked at those photographs. He had made me go over everything I had said. After that, according to Riel, the police had contacted James Corwin’s insurance company. They found out that even though Corwin had insured Tracie’s ring when he gave it to her, he had never filed a claim when it was stolen. They also found out that he had had it gem-printed—the insurance company had on file a laser print of the diamond that had been in Tracie Corwin’s engagement ring. And it turned out that what Emily had told me was true—gemprints were like fingerprints. They’d been successfully used in court to conclusively identify gems. Then the police got a warrant for the ring that James Corwin had been wearing on his finger since a few months after Tracie died, and guess what? It was the same diamond. They tracked down the jeweler who had made the setting, who told them when Corwin had brought it in—a couple of months after Tom Howard was arrested. “You told them things that I told you,” she said. “I talked to you, and you told the cops, and now my dad says it’s my fault.” Then she did something that really surprised me. Emily Corwin started to cry.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” I said. I didn’t mean I was sorry he was arrested. I just meant I was sorry she had a dad like that. And I guess I was kind of sorry that she had lost so much—her mother, her sister, and now her father. I wondered what was going to happen to her.
She wiped her tears with the palms of her hands, hard, smearing them, her eyes on me now, angry. “I hate you,” she said, screaming at me. One of the women at the front of the room handed the paper she was holding to the woman beside her and started to walk to where we were standing.
“Is everything okay back here?” she said. Her name was Ms. Walker. She was a music teacher. I’d seen her work with the kids who were going to be in the recital. She always stayed for a while after they were gone, making notes and going through her music. She always chatted with me too.
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Thanks.”
I tried to take Emily by the arm, to lead her out of the room, but she wouldn’t let me. She stared at me. More tears were running down her face. She stared at me, and then she slapped me. Boy, did it ever sting. It took me by surprise too. Ms. Walker stepped forward. I saw her open her mouth to say something. Emily turned and walked out of the room.
Ms. Walker watched her and then turned to me. The side of my face was hot. I felt embarrassed. Ms. Walker looked at me.
“It’s nothing,” I said. Except that it wasn’t nothing. It was something, and I knew exactly what. When my mother died, I was angry. I found excuses to get into fights with kids who still had mothers. After Billy died, I was angry again. I was angry when I was in foster care, and I was still angry some of the time after I moved in with Riel. And because I was so angry, I did dumb stuff. So I couldn’t say I didn’t know. I couldn’t say I didn’t understand.
“Girlfriend?” Ms. Walker said.
I shook my head.
Ms. Walker pulled my hand away from my cheek. “Well, she left quite a mark.”
The handprint had faded by the time Rebecca showed up. She kissed me on the same cheek Emily had slapped. Then she slipped her bare hand in mine, and we walked over to her house and watched two videos. One was a chick flick, the kind of movie that girls like and that they think are terrific if they get to cry at the end. The other one was an action movie. Rebecca seemed to enjoy it as much as I did.
It was nearly one in the morning by the time I left her house, and past one by the time I got home. Riel was still up when I got there. He was sitting at the kitchen table, smiling down at the tabletop.
“Where’s Susan?” She had been at the house when I left for work.
“She’s on call. She had to go into work.”
Uh-huh. So why the big smile?
“She said yes,” he said.
“Yes to…?”
“Mike, I’m getting married.”
I was happy for him. I really was. But I couldn’t help wondering.
“We want you to stay with us, Mike,” he said. “We both do. You okay with that?”
I said I was. And, boy, was I ever.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Norah McClintock is the author of several mystery series for teenagers and a five-time winner of the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Juvenile Crime Novel. McClintock was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. She lives in Toronto with her husband and children.
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