“Sure.”
“Your stepmother, Erica, says she was away in Minnesota for the past several days. Is that right?”
“Yep.”
“Were you and Gordon the only ones staying here while she was gone?”
“Yep. Just him and me. The associates and paralegals stay in a motel. Gordon gets the big house. That’s how it works.”
I noticed for the second time that Jay called his father “Gordon.” Looking at Darrell, I could see that he’d noticed it, too.
“Where does your mother live?” I asked.
“Milwaukee.”
“You don’t live with her?”
“Normally, I do, but Gordon decided to bring me with him while he worked on the trial. It wasn’t up for debate.” The teenager rolled his eyes. “He said the Milwaukee schools were giving me all sorts of crazy ideas.”
“Like what?”
“Like we value money over people in this country. And lawyers are some of the worst offenders.”
“When did you get here?”
“October.”
“It must have been hard going into the high school in the middle of the semester. We’re pretty cliquish around here. Outsiders have a tough time being accepted.”
“Really? I didn’t notice.”
I heard the sarcasm laid on thick.
“Let’s talk about the last few days,” I said. “When did you last see your father?”
“Sunday morning at breakfast.”
“Have you been home since then?”
“Yep.”
“But you hadn’t seen your father for two days?”
Jay shrugged. “Gordon usually had lunch in his office. I wasn’t allowed inside. Nobody was. He wasn’t in the house for dinner on Sunday or Monday, so I had leftovers from the fridge.”
“Didn’t you think it was odd that he didn’t show up for dinner?”
“No. Sometimes he’d work all night. I figured that’s what he was doing.”
“Even on Christmas Eve?”
“It’s not like we were waiting up for Santa,” Jay replied.
“Did you hear your father in the house on Sunday or Monday? Do you know if he slept in his bedroom?”
“I have no idea.”
“Did anyone come by the house in the last few days? Did you see anyone?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure? This is very important, Jay. You didn’t see or hear anybody else around here in the last two days?”
“Nope.”
“And you were home, you were in the house, the entire time?”
Jay stuttered a little. “That’s what I said.”
Darrell noticed the teenager’s hesitation. He interrupted from where he was standing by the windows. “You didn’t go out at all?”
“No, I was here.”
“Did you look outside on Sunday night?”
“I don’t remember. If I did, I didn’t see anything.”
“Your bedroom windows look out on the front yard,” Darrell went on, gesturing through the glass. “If somebody drove in here on Sunday, there would have been headlights.”
“I didn’t see any lights, and I didn’t hear anybody outside.”
“Were you in your bedroom all evening?”
“No. Not the whole time. I watched some TV. The den’s on the other side of the house. Maybe somebody came by while I was doing that. I don’t know.”
“What did you watch on TV?” Darrell asked.
More hesitation. “I don’t remember.”
Darrell frowned. I knew he didn’t believe what Jay was telling us. I leaned forward and put a hand lightly on the boy’s wrist.
“Jay, do you have any idea who killed your father?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea why someone would want to harm him?”
“I assume it’s because of the lawsuit.”
“Why do you assume that?”
“That’s why we’re here. What else could it be?”
“Did your father talk about getting threats? Did you hear threats directed at him in town or at school?”
Jay finally turned his head and looked at me. “I can’t remember a day when there haven’t been threats. Nobody wants us here. They’ve made that very clear. I’ve had shit smeared on my locker half a dozen times. People broke our windows and slashed our tires. You saw what happened with Erica.”
“Do you know who was involved in any of these incidents?”
“No.”
“Was your father worried about them?”
“He said it was the usual harassment that comes with big lawsuits.”
I let the silence between us linger while I studied Jay’s eyes. He was a smart kid, but with stormy waters underneath the calm. Maybe it was the usual teenage angst, but I got the feeling there was more to it than that.
“Erica says your relationship with your father was difficult,” I said quietly.
“You could say that. He didn’t like me. I didn’t like him.”
“Why is that?”
“Mostly, I think he hated the fact that I knew who he really was.”
“Oh, yes?” I asked. “Who was he?”
Jay turned away and stared at the ceiling again. “You’ll figure it out sooner or later. Gordon was a monster.”
When Darrell and I were back outside, I lit a cigarette. I didn’t like smoking in front of him, because his wife was dealing with lung cancer and he blamed it on her lifelong habit. He’d given it up himself years earlier. Most of the other deputies smoked, and Darrell never said a word to me when I did it, but I felt guilty anyway. Even so, I was exhausted, and my nerves were shattered. The cigarette relaxed me.
“What’s your take on Jay?” Darrell asked.
“I think teenage boys hate the idea of growing up like their fathers, and fathers want their teenage boys to grow up just like them.”
Darrell responded with a low chuckle. “True enough. On the other hand, calling Gordon a monster? That’s an interesting choice of words, given what was on the wall. Almost like he’d seen it for himself.”
I shivered in the cold, my fingers trembling as I held my cigarette. The word rattled around in my head. Monster.
The snow had stopped, but the wind had come up in its wake, throwing silvery clouds around us. We stood near the dark trees that grew in a ring around the clearing. It was winter, and it still wasn’t dawn yet. I did what I always did, what I’d done hundreds of times hiking in the woods since I was ten years old. I listened for the hufffffff that told me the Ursulina was close by.
“You don’t really think Jay killed him, do you?” I asked.
Darrell took a while to reply. “No, I don’t. Then again, what’s my philosophy of life?”
“You never know.”
“Exactly. You never know. Here’s a kid who obviously had a terrible relationship with his father. He was at the house the whole time, so he had plenty of opportunity and no alibi.”
“Bad relationship or not, I can’t see a child doing that to a parent.”
Darrell shrugged. “Lizzie Borden took an ax.”
“So what’s next?”
“Next we talk to Sandra Thoreau. The lawsuit is still the likeliest motive for murdering Brink. We need to find out if anyone on her team has been making noises about going after him. It’s mostly been mischief up to now, but that kind of thing can get out of control fast.”
“Okay.”
I wasn’t done with my cigarette, but I threw it in the snow and stamped it down. I stared into the trees, still expecting a rustling in the branches and the noise of heavy breathing. My mind was awhirl. Everything was catching up to me — the night, the sleeplessness, the cold, the blood. Darrell called my name, but I was distracted and didn’t answer. He reached out and squeezed my shoulder.